


The Birthday

by JakeDov



Series: The Skyrim Chronicles [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Coming Out, Drama, Family, Family Feels, Love, M/M, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 19:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JakeDov/pseuds/JakeDov
Summary: Ralof and Haithabu are a couple for close to two years now, they did not always have an easy time, and are now about to spend a weekend in Riverwood so that Ralof can present his boyfriend to his family for the first time ever. It wont be going according to any of their plans and there will be one or the other obstacle in their way. After all, life is not easy, never was, and will certainly never be...





	The Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, this is my first ever fanfic that I´m gonna post online and I am so excited! Please leave comments about what you think of it (if you like it, but also if you dont like it)!  
> I am currently working on an entire series about my Elderscrolls: Skyrim character Haithabu and his life and love and his time in Skyrim in general, and this one is one of the first chapters I finished. It is not chronologically the first, but one of my favourites so far, so I´m gonna start with it on this page.  
> So, I really hope that you´ll like it and I´d really be glad if you left some feedback about what you thought/think of it. After all, I am still new to all of this and I´m desperately in need of someone telling me if I´m on the right path here.  
> Thanks already and have tons of fun reading it!

The Birthday

The Draugr dove for the killing blow. It closed in with near supernatural speed, swinging its ancient sword in a wide arc which would sever my head with the same ease as a peasant scythes his crop. But I was ready. I had even been waiting for it. Dodging its advance in a smooth and premeditated turn and spinning around my own and the Draugr´s axis, I came up behind its back. I moved fast and with precision and by the time it noticed I was no longer standing right in front of it, and the powerful strike of its right arm went wide, causing the Undead to momentarily lose its clumsy balance, my dagger had already slashed its spinal cord thrice and went up to the tendons of the neck for a fourth and final thrust. I felt the hardened glass cut through wilted flesh, rusted sinews, hardened muscle and ancient bone alike and only turned away when the head had been severed entirely, and started to roll off into the darker corners of the gigantic burial chamber, out of my line of sight, the rest of the body crumpling into a lifeless heap right in front of my boots. There was no blood.  
Also, there was no time and not a second to pause or to triumph over this defeat; it had been merely a temporary victory. The actual fight was far from over and there was no time to lose, no energy to go to waste. Melting back into the shadows with practised ease I took my slender glass bow to hand again and assessed now what I had instinctively felt before. I was about halfway through the quiver of ancient nordic arrows, there were about twenty to thirty shots left. I rarely missed, but Draugr were a lot harder to kill than most living creatures. Mostly, because they were pretty dead already and only a direct and definite blow through the heart or a severed spine or a beheading or some such could truly stop them for good. Still, the remaining arrows should be more than enough to get rid of the rest of the ancient pest, especially since their main attention was currently focused on something, or rather someone else entirely and most Draugr didn’t even bother to notice me. I slipped around a pillar – careful not to let anyone catch sight of me – and moved into position. The way the two of us were standing now, we had all of our enemies distributed evenly between us and while they were focused solely on my fighting companion and concentrated their futile efforts on somehow attempting to kick, thrust or jab him off the pedestal of one of their ancient graves he had chosen as his vantage point, they all had their relatively unprotected backs exposed to me and all I had to do was find a gap in their armour and hit the precise spot in their skeleton where my arrow would slip through their ribcage and pierce the heart from behind. It would be a child´s play.  
It was only after shooting aiming and letting fly three of my low running arrows which all unerringly found their target, causing the recipients to fall dead on the spot, that the others seemed to remember there was something wrong and another foe must be lurking in the shadows somewhere behind. I took a quick step back, shimmied further into the blackness and ceased fire for the moment. They were slowly spreading out in a minute of confusion and tried to scan the shadows with their dim eyes. Willing them not to notice me and standing utterly silent and unmoving, I had just opened the possibility for my companion to wreak havoc in their midst due to all their confusion. With his giant longsword, he severed the heads and half the torsos of two lesser Draugr with a single blow of his strong arms, adding their remains to the pile of dead peers already massing at the foot of the ancient stone structure at his feet. After we had finished all of them off, there would be more than enough time to systematically go through the spare and Spartan belongings of the dead ones. And while lacking almost anything else, Draugr usually were in possession of all but the best weaponry. Making it a lucrative and usually satisfactorily profitable venture to loot the ancient graves they had so fittingly made their haunts. But in order to achieve that, we had to kill them first.  
I was pretty sure Ralof couldn’t see me any more than the Undead could, but he flashed a brilliant smile into my general direction nonetheless, knowing I was there, waiting for the Deathlords to lose interest in me once again in order to resume my offensive. I saw his eyes flash as he wheeled and sprung onto the back of one of the stronger enemies, the point of his blade up front slicing through armour, bones and heart alike and, kicking himself off of his opponent even as life left it once and for all and the inanimate body sank to the ground, Ra flew through the stale air for several yards and landed with a heavy crash on the next in line. This one had not been completely off guard and Ra´s sword was wrenched to the side. The Draugr had raised its shield just in time to fend off Ra´s deadly extension of his arms and both of them sank to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and blades and armour. The entire chamber rang with their noisy impact on the cold stone floor, as either struggled for the upper hand and the rattle of their steely and irony pieces of armour striking the ancient cobbles made my sensitive ears clang.  
The big burial chamber roughly had the ground area of a more or less even rectangle, with the sepulchre of the powerful Draugr Deathlord currently engrossed in a life and death struggle a mere ten feet from me, in the very centre of it. There were ten big and imposing stone pillars to the left and right of the coffin, behind of which stood a row of now opened graves belonging to all his followers and cronies, all lesser Draugr that had been interred with their lord and master. Most of them were truly and thoroughly dead by now, but the Draugr-Deathlord and his most mighty cronies were still in the game and ready to be taken care off. The struggle between Ra and their holy commander veered the attention of the remaining Undead back to the main struggle and away from me, it seemed they were all of a sudden losing any interest in me again and of what deadly projectiles I could make fly at them from the shadows. Instead, they advanced on the heap of men – or at least one man and one … whatever? – battling on the floor and readied themselves to charge my love as one. And while Ralof seemed to be getting the upper hand at long last and needed only a few more moments of reprieve from their collected assault to overpower the Deathlord, he would surely not be able to win out against all of them together. I needed to do something about this, and quickly.  
The string of my bow oscillated in the typical bassy melody I loved so much, as I notched and shot five times in quick succession, every shot aiming true and bringing one assailant down. But it would not be enough – as I quickly came to realize – I did not have enough time to kill all of them before the first couple would reach Ra and the Deathlord and by then it would be too late. I quickly veered to the right and even while still in motion I drew, notched, aimed and let one of the remaining arrows fly directly into the throat of the remotely female looking brute that had dared and tried approaching me from behind. Considering the fact that they were – or rather should be – mostly dead, Draugr could be vexingly smart sometimes. She had been slipping in and out of the shadows much like myself and instead of carrying their typical ancient nordic swords or warhammers, this one had been in possession of a fine and pretty good ancient bow with still an entire quiver of ancient nordic arrows slung across her shoulder. I made a note of that in a remote shelf in a part of my brain that was currently not occupied with keeping the two of us alive, to remember and come back to loot her corpse later, but right now there were more pressing matters to attend to.  
Ralof cried out in a truly impressing fighting shout, making use of his nordic ability to momentarily stun his opponent with his booming voice alone, petrifying his counterpart and thus providing but a brief moment of respite for him to gather himself and retake his sword which lay only a score of feet from where they had fallen to the cold stone floor. The confusion and disorientation barely lasted more than the briefest blink of an eye, but it was enough. Quickly gathering his wits and his strength again, the Deathlord was far from beaten, but now Ralof was clearly dominating the exchange of blows, engaging the Lord of the Undead in a desperate fight for his dear life – or Unlife or whatever else the state he was in was actually called.  
The entire cluster of Draugr around him stumbled from this vocal attack and scattered, momentarily too dazed to fight. This was my cue. In a quick succession of shots and precise gestures I emptied my quiver into the remaining foes, felling and killing all but the strongest of them, leaving them lying in small heaps in front of Ra´s feet. He didn’t look at me as he charged the Deathlord but I knew he was as aware and completely one with his surroundings as I was. I felt the same peace and utter ease of mind so typical for a demanding but at the same time oddly refreshing battle like this one. This was what both of us had been born for, were training for every single day. War and fighting and killing was our business and both of us got completely carried away with the thrill and the excitement of an engagement like this time and again. Killing demons, vampires, werewolves, bandits, Draugr and many, many more creatures of the dark was what I earned my living with and I loved every single moment of it.  
Discarding my bow, I quickly reached to pull a one-handed steel sword from its scabbard and complementing this with my enchanted glass dagger I had used on the other Draugr before, I darted out of the shadows to finally join the melee. At this point, Ralof had maimed another one of our opponents, bringing it down to its knees just long enough for him to mortally slash through its entire torso, causing the now lifeless body to fall away, split in two halves. He was immediately engaged again by the furious Deathlord who had apparently somewhere in this struggle lost his horned helmet and was getting more and more frustrated by the fact that he just couldn’t get through to Ra himself and was time and again skilfully thwarted by his immaculate defences. He roared and both Ra and I ducked just in time to avoid the shockwave radiating around him that would sure have swept us from our feet, same as Ra had done to the assembled Undead before. But we were wise to the trick – after all, this were by no means the first Draugr to cross either of our paths and very likely also not the last – and I quickly crouched behind the broken lid of the closest tomb. When his shout finally faded away at last and I resurfaced again, I found myself face to face with the very last remaining cronies of the Draugr commander.  
All in all – Deathlord excluded – there were only three Draugr left alive in the burial chamber, one supposedly female, two male. In an almost impossible bound I summersaulted through the air and landed exactly where I had planned to, in front of one of the warriors who had just been on the move to approach Ra from behind – probably due to a silently communicated distress call from his increasingly desperate master – to sneakily put her blade between Ra´s exposed and momentarily unprotected shoulder blades. But, he was not truly unprotected, because when all else failed, I would still be standing between my partner and his enemies, fighting to the last of my resources to keep him safe. The female Draugr didn’t make a sound as she went down and my blades left big and ugly holes in the middle of her chest.  
Wary and much more cautious concerning the unwanted intruders, her companions however proved much more difficult to put out. I breathed to find my centre and let them circle me, goading them into an inconsiderate attack and for the moment succeeded in making them believe they were my betters and that I would and could be easily disposed of. They attacked at precisely the same moment, coming at me from both sides, a show of perfect coordination and almost creepy efficiency, especially for usually quite dim creatures like them. I veered half a step back and twisted slightly to the left to parry the strike of the leftmost assailant with my own blade, forcing him into his companion with a kick of my heel to his hip, causing both of them to stumble slightly and loose balance. They quickly righted themselves before I could land a fatal blow, but I did succeed in slashing at the forearm of the left Draugr just in time before he caught a whiff of my intent and jumped away, behind his “friend”, who continued his assault while the shield of the first flew from his lifeless fingers, clattering to the ground uselessly. The second Draugr was stronger and faster than the first one and for some time I was busy and fully occupied with parrying and repaying his blows superficially while my eyes scanned his pattern and my brain frantically evaluated for a way to cut through his defences and how to kill him in the quickest and most efficient way. All the while his companion tried to slip away and behind my back unnoticed, but I wouldn’t let it happen and darted around quickly, never allowing one of them to move out of my line of sight.  
I finally found a flaw in the scheme of their fighting, but got no opportunity to act upon it, because now the wounded Draugr was at long last back in the game, exactly in place where I anticipated he´d strike next – I had indeed counted upon this move – and he lunged at me from the right, greatsword vertically extended in front of him like a stinger, prepared to cut through my light armour like paper and pin me from behind, just as his buddy intensified his distracting attacks from the front, keeping my attention busy. In the nick of time – I could already feel the blade coming closer, causing the hair on my neck to stand up and send goose bumps down my spine – I let myself fall to the floor and dropped flat on my stomach. It hadn’t been a moment too early, I realized as I heard the satisfying crunch of broken armour and the ripping and popping noises of the shattering bones of the Draugr in front of me, and quickly rolled out of the way and out of the reach of its death throes. I kicked myself into a standing position with a smooth offhand motion and barely any effort at all, not wanting the dead enemy to fall on top of me. The last remaining Draugr roared with fury over my deceit and decided to let all pretence go and just lunge at me madly and with wild eyes and it was almost too easy to doge around his incompetently covered flank and drive the sharp blade of my sword through his unprotected side, slicing open his stomach and covering me in a disgusting spray of ichor. Draugr didn’t bleed, but what their bodies were filled with instead of blood wasn’t that much better. I wrinkled my nose and quickly stepped out of the way to escape the worst of it, but the damage was already done. I would definitely need to bathe later. Turning to Ra and the very last of our opponents who seemed to be just short of being beaten as well, I kept my discomfort in the back of my mind and focused on the remaining problem instead.  
Ralof and the Deathlord wheeled and spun around each other ever faster, almost too swift to discern single moves and movements, their quick exchange of blows coalescing and both men flowing around each other in what quickly came to resemble sort of a dance, reeling and spinning in close and then apart from each other to earn a second to catch one´s breath and then engaging again, hoping to finally be able to deal a fatal blow. One of these times they disengaged to warily circle each other for what must be the thousandths time, I saw that Ralof had indeed crippled and maimed his opponent considerably but had not yet been able to really get to him. I quickly jogged into motion and the next time Ra charged, I was there by his side, to support and assist him in the final kill. And it was far from easy, I am telling you. Because even with both of us, both of our skills, considerable training and years of experience in this area combined, the Deathlord drove both of us close to the limit and it was only by a marginal advantage that victory was at long last ensured.  
Ralof and I moved around each other, dealing blows and covering each other´s attacks and retreats with all the natural ease and common self-concept of people who truly knew each other and knew what the other was going to do next, even seconds before he actually moved, without having to say anything at all. It was this and the wordless understanding between us, that finally enabled us to kill the Draugrlord. While Ralof moved in close – almost too close for his double-handed sword to fully bear its advantage – and managed to concentrate the Master of the Death´s attention solely on himself for a few precious moments, I was free at last to sneak behind him and for once he didn’t notice. I did not give away precious time but stabbed at his behind with both my sword and the small dagger in my right hand immediately. I rejoiced when I felt him give and saw that my efforts forced the strong brute onto its knees at long last. On the other side of him Ra renewed his efforts and gave a last impressive battle cry, before he swung his sword wide. The tendons in my arms screamed as I struggled to hold the Draugr down with all my strength, awaiting the final blow, the blades that were pinning his torso prevented him from recovering and get up on his feet again, but I grit my tears and swallowed the pain. It was nothing my body couldn’t handle. I felt my muscles work as the Draugr increased his desperate struggles, his thrashing ever increasing the closer Ra´s blade whistled. Just when I thought he was actually going to get the better of me and I couldn’t take the strain any more, there was a crunch and something that sounded like a distant sigh and all at once I was free. Suddenly without leverage I stumbled back abruptly and nearly fell, as Ra eventually beheaded the powerful Undead and he went down for good in a surprisingly large spray of ichor and dust. As abrupt as his death descended, a profound silence fell over the giant and truly impressive cavern immediately and I was glad for the light of the torches that lit the vast expanse of this sanctuary at least perfunctory. Finally, Ra lowered his sword, which he still held at a ready and looked around. “Are we done? Are they really all dead?”  
“It is done,” I confirmed and gingerly stepped around the biggest puddles of ichor to get to my sword and dagger and to pull them out of the dead Draugr´s body. We stood like that for some time, both panting a little bit and just looked at each other happily. Finally, I relaxed and wiped the blade of my grime and ichor coated blade at the rags of the closest Draugr before I shoved them back into their respective sheaths. Then I began to systematically move around the room, to collect all undamaged arrows and likewise looted all the other corpses in the process. I took the as yet full quiver from the huntress I had killed afore. Apart from weapons and arrows and the occasional odds and ends, there was usually not much a Draugr carried on its body – gods, there was not much these zombies even possessed – but a look in their pockets was always worth the trouble, because, as in this case, there was many a Draugr carrying heavy purses of gold with them. Though, frankly, I could neither imagine what they´d use that for nor where they got it from in the first place. But of course, that was none of my concern and if I really thought about it, I had to confess that I also actually didn’t really want to know. Ra had quickly joined me and we had the entirety of the gigantic room swept clean of any riches in almost no time at all.  
“I have to admit,” Ra said, grinning when he turned to face me. “This is more fun than I thought it´d be.” His cheeks were positively glowing, his eyes very bright in the general dimness of the cave and he was still flushed from battle. He was bent over the lifeless form of the Deathlord he had so convincingly killed and was examining a glittering and very probably enchanted small dagger he had just found on him. Deathlords were the most lucrative of all of them, because they always kept the best and most precious things for themselves. By the looks of it, this dagger was probably enchanted with a very powerful charm and thus very likely worth a fortune. With the right buyer, we would likely make more than a thousand coins in gold with this small knife alone. And this was only the littlest part of the entire wealth that awaited us down here. Who could say what other treasures slumbered in this gigantic room, only waiting to be rediscovered and brought back to the world?  
“See? I told you so. We should really do this kind of stuff more often. It´s a great pastime.”  
“All right, it´s a date,” answered Ra. “Though I have to say, with you most things feel like the time of my life. No matter what we do, just as long as we are together.”  
“You have never been more romantic, darling.” I quickly hinted a kiss through the length of the chamber which he commented on by winking. “Come on, let´s check out the treasure chests these vile creatures must have horded down here. It´s gotta be somewhere beyond the main grave. If Lydia´s account and the old reports are indeed genuine, no living soul has entered these hallowed halls in over a millennium.”  
“Certainly felt like that on our way down here,” agreed Ralof. “I can hardly breathe in this air. Never have I seen so much dust and powder in a hallow place like this. I have inhaled so much of it, I´ll surely be all dusty from the inside out for years to come.” He had also put away his weapons at long last and was even taking off his helmet now, for better assessment of the situation. Also, I knew that Ra hated helmets and only wore them when battle commanded it and he really couldn’t avoid donning one. But now, it was very unlikely we were going to be attacked again after having discarded of the coordinator and the captain of the Undead in this place. Even if there remained some stray Draugr we had overlooked on our carful journey down here into the bowels of the earth – which was very unlikely in itself, due to Ra´s fierceness and my sneakiness – with a dead overlord and no captain they could rely on, and no one who would coordinate their actions, they would very likely be too confused to attack, too stunned to keep up with us.  
But I could see now that Ra had been right. His hair was plastered to his skull from sweat and a tiny streak of blood from a blow to the temple which had luckily been caught and absorbed by his helmet which now sported a nasty dent at the spot, but which had already healed again already, thanks to some quickly applied potion of health, a considerate warrior always carried an ample supply of on his person. His entire surface though – same as mine, by the way – was coated by a fine but no less unwanted layer of dust and soot, colouring his ordinarily slightly tanned skin an even darker brown and making him look as grimy as if he himself had spent years in the filthiest caves on earth. We´d definitely have to clean up before we went to meet Ra´s family. Or they would sure think me a truly bad influence on their proud Stormcloak captain. After all, this, here, had been my idea alone. I had suggested we stray from our predetermined path, to put up with a little delay to check out this tomb and see what could be gleaned from it. And now I was glad that I had suggested it because the prize from this cave would surely suffice for both of us to be able to lead a comfortable life for another year, if not more. From my point of view, it was totally worth it, and seeing him enjoy it as well at long last made me all the happier we had decided to do this, even though he had been sceptical at the beginning.  
But the thrill of battle hadn’t yet left him neither yet, and his aura still glowed brightly with the charge and the power of battle, strength and adrenaline shooting through his veins as he started for the tomb of the Deathlord now lying lifeless at his feet. He loved this as much as I did and I felt his entire being thrum with the anticipation of what else we would find down here in this untouched ancient treasure trove. I went up to him and traced a forefinger across his sooty cheek. It came away black and left a trace of lighter skin on his face. He laughed and tried to shake the dust from his usually fair hair which right now looked more dark brown than light blonde.  
“You sure as hell look like a chimney sweeper,” I assessed, indicating he should come along and cross the big and echoing hall with me, “which in this case is indeed not all that bad for us. It means the treasure remains pristine and untouched since whoever this grave was originally built for was interred. And you know what that means?” He grinned again, and this time it was so infectious, I felt my own lips widen as well, before mere seconds later my own mouth curled into an anticipating smile.  
“I sure do,” he said and led the way. “More spoils for us.”  
∞∞∞  
“So, how are things with the Dawnguard going?” We were just on our way back up from the bowels of the grave, saddlebags slung across our shoulders, packed with the looted prize from down below. The journey in had lasted little more than three hours, but the ascent was a lot harder to shoulder, even though we did not have to be on the watch constantly, expecting animated corpses to throw themselves in our way. Still, our blood was still high on adrenaline and though I felt the strain tug on my muscles, it was still mostly fun and I felt so glad yet again, that we had agreed to this little detour and decided to scrounge what was to be found in here. Ra apparently felt the same, cause he had been talking for quite some time now, desperate to catch up and to exchange the latest news, as both of us knew we would only have so long together, before each of us had to go their separate ways again for weeks on end. On the way down, concentration and curious anticipation of what would lie in wait for us had checked our conversation, but now we were unlikely to encounter neither friend nor foe and I was as eager as he was, to tell him everything that had happened to me since we last saw each other back at Riften at the very east of Skyrim almost four weeks ago. Usually, we managed to meet twice or even thrice a month for a few days in a row, before our respective jobs and commissions made it necessary to part in separate directions again.  
Ralof had written to me and had had his writing delivered by an express courier that we could meet even earlier than originally anticipated, as he had been able to finish his job in Ivarstead days before he was due and had been waiting for me there until I had finally arrived only two days ago. We had set out immediately for Riverwood, where Ra´s family would celebrate the birthday of Ralof´s nephew Frodnar on the upcoming Loredas. Making good time and encountering not a single danger nor a single soul at all until we had reached Helgen (which we had cut a wide circle around, as none of us wanted to wake rather unpleasant old memories of a certain dragon attack) and thus we had soon found ourselves straying into the high and mostly unexplored mountain range overlooking the lushly green meadows and lakes of Falkreath. I had remembered a story of an ancient and supposedly hidden nordic grave, an acquaintance of mine once mentioned, where legend had it, an untiring adventurer could find enormous treasures and riches. I had suggested to have a look and check the legend out, if we could in fact find the place. Ralof had been sceptical at the beginning, but we had found it at long last and now we had checked it out. Thoroughly. And, I daresay, Ra was as glad as I was about what we had found down there. “How´s Serana? She doing all right? Last time I saw her, she seemed to be so happy,” Ralof continued and proceeded to trundle away ahead. It was getting warmer and warmer down here step by step – though I could not discover a source or a reason for it. Chill in the high of battle, I was positively sweating now – which virtually never happened – and Ra was doing much worse, his armour sticking to his sooty flesh like a second skin. But my instinct told me we were by now almost back up at the surface, so I decided to make ends meet and just grin and bear it.  
I shrugged my shoulders at the questions but quickly remembered that Ra – walking a few steps ahead of me – couldn’t see. “Can´t exactly say anything for sure. But last I spoke to her I had the impression she was possibly a little bit depressed.”  
"How so?”, inquired Ra. “I´d thought she´d be quite happy that her missive has been so shockingly successful so far. Especially thanks to your effort, honey. You sure helped her winning out over those vampires a fair bit. Doesn’t she have everything she ever wanted now?”  
“Yeah, but after all, these vampires were her family. And no matter how far they may have drifted apart, killing your own kind is never easy. I am not sure I could do that to any of my relatives, not even my father; no matter what weird stuff happened between us and all the disagreements we´ve had. No matter what, he´s still my father.” I shrugged again, cause this time Ra did actually turn around to face me briefly. I did not talk about the life I had lived before often, about all the things I had left behind and most of all never about my family, so I was not too surprised that he should be curious. But I did not elaborate. “So, I guess it is only natural Serana would look at our successes from two entirely conflictive points of view. After all, she lost her family and most others of her own kind all at once. I cannot even begin to imagine how lonely she must feel at times. There´s no one left from her previous life now. No one to truly understand her. If nothing else, that is a reason to be sad for, I´d guess.”  
“But vampires are a pest. You did well on eradicating that castle of her father´s. After all, there is no love lost between her and all these savages. Serana is one of her kind and cannot be compared to these bloodthirsty killing machines.”  
“Of course not,” I said, “but imagine you would have to wipe out all other Nords on this continent, leaving you entirely alone, basically in the midst of your enemies. Even though you knew that your peers had committed crimes beyond count and had killed innocent women and children and all that by score. Still, you´d not feel truly happy, would you? I sure wouldn’t.”  
Now it was his turn to shrug. “I think it is for the best. Vampires are a real nightmare to fight against. I am glad you did what you did. I don’t like them.”  
“Nobody does, darling. That´s why they had to be wiped out. And of course, it is a good riddance; I agree with you there. But it hasn’t been easy on Serana, partly because not all in the Dawnguard truly regard her as our ally. And I understand what it means to be considered an outsider. I want to be there for her, because she really is a great person and doesn’t deserve to be regarded with scorn. After all, she forsook all the riches and promises her father heaped on her, only to do what´s best for this world and its people and save them from a peril most of them weren’t even aware of. Not many would have acted so selflessly. I really admire her for that.”  
“You are right. That does kind of sound heroic,” he said but in a tone where I couldn’t be entirely sure if he was joking or if he actually really meant what he said. “So, when do you have to be back?”  
“I told them I´d be gone for about two weeks, so I guess after the birthday we´ll still have an entire six days together before I have to show my face at the Dawnguard again. Enough time to have some fun, I should think. What are your plans for after Loredas?”  
“I have to ride straight to Windhelm. Apparently Galmar has an important mission and he has summoned me to come attend Jarl Ulfric as fast as possible.”  
“Your commanders sent you an immediate summoning order and yet you sneak around in deserted tombs and lost under-earth cities in the middle of nowhere with your lover? Man, you´ll have a lot of explaining to do when they find out. I dare say Galmar will be far from amused.”  
“Only because sneaking around with my boyfriend is my most beloved way of sneaking around at all.” Ralof smirked. “Besides, he´ll never know. I won´t tell anything if you won´t tell anything.”  
“I´d never say anything,” I said. “After all, besides costing you your favourite job, it would cost me some much more important benefits besides, and I am just not prepared to let that go without a fight, so… sure, my lips are sealed.”  
“You could come, if you like. I am sure they´d both be happy to see you again and maybe you can even help with the commission. After all, if they can trust me, they can trust you. Maybe they´ll even send me to Riften, then we´ll be together for much longer than anticipated. How great would that be?”  
“Oh, I would love that. You could come help us hunt for vampires, after your job is done. The more hunters the better. And I know Serana would love to see you again as well. I´m actually not allowed to tell you, but she´s quite the fan of you, too, so it would be a lot of fun. What do you say?”  
“As flattered as I am, but I really don’t like vampires. Not a wee bit. I´d rather walk unprotected into a nest of Frostbite spiders and fight them with nothing but my bare hands, than voluntarily go hunting for vampires.” He shook his head decisively. “No, I think I´ll pass on that. But I´ll come visit you. Didn’t you say there was a lot of unused room in the Dawnguard anyways? Maybe I´ll bring one of those spiders. I´ve always wanted to have a pet anyways.” He turned again to regard me with mischief in his eyes, laugh lines spidering concentrically from his bright eyes.  
“Ugh,” I grimaced, trying not to think of an entire nest of the giant aggressive spiders and my beloved Ralof walking into one of their haunts, completely unarmed. “I´d rather prefer if you didn’t. There´s nothing I hate more in this world than… creepy, disgusting spiders.” I shuddered and gripped the comforting handle of my bow tighter as I warily scanned our surroundings. We had finally retraced our steps back up into civilization and stood in the first main hall of the ancient nordic grave, just underneath the surface of the massive mountainside. My ears picked up the soft swoosh of the wind, sweeping through the crests of the dark fir trees outside, my nose catching a whiff of the rich and nascent scent of their sap and I inhaled deeply in anticipation of the pristine nature above.  
“I know. And I dislike none more than bloody vampires.” He furrowed his brows thoughtfully. “Don’t tell Serana I said that. She is… different.”  
“Sure. She´s an exception in most ways, we can readily agree on that.”  
“By the way,” said Ra, trotting into motion again. “Why do you have to hunt vampires at all? I thought you said you killed all of them at Castle Volkihar? You sure were gone long enough to lay waste to an entire race back then. At some point, it felt like you were out there for ages. I was almost worried you´d never return to me.” He quickly turned away but I still caught the hint of something teary glinting in his eyes. Oh Ra, I thought. I must be the luckiest man on earth, getting to love you. It´s almost impossible sometimes that you could truly love me back.  
“I´ll always return to you,” I said with conviction. “Same as you´ll always return to me.” He didn’t answer but nodded all the same. I gave him a leg-up, then reached up to accept his extended hand as he pulled me up an especially high precipice after him. I could see the first hints of daylight through the cracks overhead now, heralding we would soon be able to leave the darkness and dankness of this dusty tomb behind and emerge again into the open light of day of springy Skyrim and would again feel the vast expanse of the firmament above.  
“But back to the topic. The carnage in this castle was not yet the end of the story,” I conceded. “There are still vagrant and renegade gangs of vampires out there. Without a proper and unifying master and a coherent organization system, they raid small or middle-sized camps and a lot of lonely, unheeding travellers all across and over Skyrim, but mostly in the Reach and around Riften itself, being all the more dangerous in this form than ever before, cause now they have no one they have to answer to and whom they must try to impress or please any more. And as much as I did dislike Harkon, the Lord of the Vampires on Volkihar, he sure did keep his cronies in line.”  
“Except butchered infants and drained mothers on remote farmsteads,” cut in Ra dryly. “Not to mention all the turnlings he created over time. This is not to be sneezed at. But other than that, sure, he was a true sweetheart.”  
“Well, okay, mostly in line,” I agreed, before continuing. “Anyways, Serana, Isorn and I have agreed it will be necessary to systematically hunt these groups down and eradicate them, to try and rid Skyrim of vampirism altogether, but this task sure is not as easy by far as it sounds like. They are surprisingly cunning and vexingly hard to find and follow. Have you ever tried tracking someone who can turn into a bat and just fly way? It´s a living nightmare. Not very amusing, I can tell you that.”  
Ra started to chuckle in that particular deep and throaty way that was so typical for him, and which never failed to make my nerve ends prickle. “Well, maybe you could all try to provoke Serana into turning you into bats as well to give chase. After all, from what I have heard she is not only a very powerful vampire but also a quite skilled magician. It would be worth a shot and I´d really love to see a bat with your ears or with Isorn´s beard.”  
Now I had to grin as well. “Try running that by Serana. She´ll be thrilled.” I winked at him. “Or drain you right away. She might be on our side, but she still is a quite terrifying vampiress nonetheless. Believe me, you don’t wanna see her angry.”  
“So, now you´re afraid of her,” teased Ralof.  
“I sure as Oblivion am. Every sane man should. It´s for our own good. After all, she is a quite impressive personality, even if she is in good spirits, don’t you think?”  
“Agreed. But I like her all the same.”  
“So do I. Which is why I want to help her so bad. After all, she poured so much blood, sweat and tears into this and I want to see her content at long last. She sure as hell didn’t have a particularly easy life so far and deserves to succeed in this.”  
“That´s very noble from you,” said Ra and briefly disappeared from my line of sight through the crack in the rock which was the cave opening. I followed right behind. Bright sunshine blinded me for a few seconds, but my eyes were quick to adapt. I ducked under the last rocky overhang and was glad to recognize that out here nothing had changed and all was as we had left it, hours before. The entrance to the cave was expertly hidden in a cul-de-sac of a very small gorge – if you didn’t know there was something down here, you´d never look for it in this area – and there were grassy hills spreading out into the distance to the left and right of the narrow coomb and the one or other cluster of robust mountain firs, standing close to each other and leaning in as if to protect each other against the sometimes-harsh winds of winter up here on the bleak mountainside. Under one of these clusters we had left our horses, which were currently chewing away happily at the hardy tussocks of sturdy grass stems under their hooves. They regarded their returning masters with but a spare glance before relaxedly returning to their munching. If nothing else, their utter calm and the ease with which they stood in the warming afternoon sun was assertion enough that there were no immediate dangers to fear – which was often the case when you re-emerged onto Skyrim – but for now, apparently, all was fine.  
The entrance to the tomb faced the to the south, facing towards the rest of the mountain range and the ever higher peaks of snow-capped mountains, but once you started to round the side of the structure of rock that formed the natural crest of the old grave, you soon came around the side of the mountain and could admire some splendid views over much of Falkreath and what lay beyond, the wide and mostly even plains spreading out far below us, the water of the multiple lakes and waterways catching bright rays of the potent sun, glinting and sparkling even for our far away eyes. At least, on a clear day like this. We had made camp on this very spot, beneath the cover of a score of gnarly pine trees and our horses stood exactly on the same spot where we had left them. Ra was quickly crossing the rocks, interwoven with grassy patches of hardy vegetation, and slung his saddleback across the broad back of his horse.  
“That´s me,” I agreed, still joking. “Noble and chivalric and always on the hunt for righteousness, just like the most generous kings of old.”  
“Don’t you get ahead of yourself there, my love. I agree that you may be pretty awesome at most times, but it would be terribly vain to let all the world suffer for it.”  
I shoved his shoulder playfully and he stumbled out of the way, quickly turning in a swirl and spinning me around as well. He took hold of one of my arms and swept me into a tight embrace. Before I could do anything else, think of anything else, he had pushed me against the closest rock boulder – which reached high above either of our heads – and started kissing me uninhibitedly, his hands placed palm down against the smooth surface of the rock to the left and right of me, forming a natural cage around my shoulders while I was pinned to the warm face of the mountainside by his lithe body, the pieces of rock hard behind my back, his lips burning on mine and his tongue hot in my mouth. I needed a second to catch my breath but then I responded immediately, pulling him in even closer and relishing how good it felt to have him close, to have him want me as much as I wanted him, apart from prying eyes and disapproving looks, alone with him on this beautiful afternoon, in this beautiful place… alone, with this beautiful man. His intent was more than clear, his kisses hot and fiery, not holding anything back. He tasted of blood and sweat and the century-old dust that had accumulated everywhere and still clung so consistently to his clothes and armour, his every surface, but the same could probably also be said about me, so I did not mind all too much.  
“Woha,” I said when he finally pulled back to briefly catch his breath and looked up at me with faint laughter around his lips but deep and lusty longing in his eyes. “What was that for?” My legs were suddenly wobbly and extraordinarily unsteady, I felt my own chest constrict and my heart expand with love for this unusual being in front of me.  
He shrugged, still not altering his position and thus effectively arresting me in the natural cranny of the rocks. “For you just… being you, I guess.” He stole another kiss, before finally and quite reluctantly drawing back. “Being the mam I fell in love with head over heels and whom I haven’t stopped adoring since.” He touched my cheek and brushed along my cheekbone softly with his thumb, leaving behind an electrifying line of hot longing on my sensitive skin. “I love you, Tabu,” he whispered.  
This time it was me who initiated the smooching and I felt my heart starting to race in my chest. Ralof started to unclasp and untangle the knots of my armour plates with all the skilled ease of a warrior who donned and shucked his armour every day, and it quickly fell away to the floor. It barely took ten seconds for his own chainmail and cape to follow suit and I could finally slip my hands under his gossamer shirt to feel the soft smooth skin beneath, brush across his chest and the little depression of his navel and trace the hard ridges of his abs with my still slightly sooty fingertips. I felt his midriff contract every time he exhaled and soon found my way to his softest spot. He started groaning and I drew back quickly, before I let myself become further seduced and got instigated in actions that would probably entail serious consequences for both of us. “What about hurrying home?”, I asked quite breathlessly, still feeling the imprint of his lips on mine, not wanting this moment to ever end. “I thought you wanted to press on as soon as we were done here. You said you wanted to hurry to make it to your sister´s tonight.”  
“Come.” Ra turned abruptly without saying anything else and I saw him take his sleeping pallet and one of my warm blankets from the saddle bags. With these in his right hand, he pulled me even further away from the horses with his left, around another obscuring bend in the face of the mountain to a slightly protected dry space underneath a broad rock overhang that overlooked the little valley, below, where a small and crystal clean stream ran its lonely course. The main attraction, though, was the splendid view across vast extents of Skyrim to the north, Falkreath spreading directly below us. It was a clear and utterly cloudless day, so that I could see as far as the hills behind the Hold far, far up North and saw how their peaks were still deep in snow, after this terribly hard winter – or so I made myself believe. The sight took my breath away. Ra, in the meantime, had kneeled to spread his pallet and the blanket evenly on the smooth earth.  
When he got up again – now only dressed in a barely sufficient loincloth and the airy tunic I mentioned before – I could barely escape temptation and felt my resolve weaken. He was just reaching out for me again but this time I kept his hands firmly in mine, before they could deal any damage. After all, I got the feeling that he did this as much for me as for himself, knowing that I was pretty nervous to finally, properly meet his family for the very first time and had tried to stall for time for weeks on end. “What about Frodnar´s birthday?”, I asked softly. “I don’t wanna be a delay. After all, without me, you´d be there already.”  
“Well, yes. But without you, I´d also not be me,” he said and for this I wanted to hold him, to kiss him, to do unspeakable things to him that wouldn’t even begin to be enough to show him the true scope of my infinite love for him. “The big day is not till the day after tomorrow and I just figured, as we are gonna stay with my family for a few days anyways – and we can hardly do anything together while we are sleeping under Hod´s roof – and this Draugr business actually took up much less time than I anticipated, we could just as well savour this night and dedicate it to each other. There is no one around for miles and I have wanted to be alone with you once again for ages. We haven’t been truly alone for what feels like months. After all, who cares if we arrive tonight or tomorrow morning. The birthday isn’t till the weekend. And Hod´s probably even glad the less he sees of me anyways.”  
“So… what exactly is it you are suggesting?”, I asked, hope building up slowly.  
“I am suggesting,” said Ra while he started to take his shirt off slowly and grinned as I mirrored his move and slipped my own cotton tunic over my head. “That we stay here this night and make it worth the little delay. After all, it only takes about four hours of hard riding to Riverwood. I daresay we will make it tomorrow and still be in time to help Gerdur with lunch.” Then he pulled me down next to him gently and we lay together comfortably in the fading afternoon sun. He placed a disconcertingly delicious set of kisses all across my torso and my breathing quickened promptly. I couldn’t have stopped now, not even if I´d wanted to.  
“I like where this is going,” I said and let the smile that had wanted to break free all this time spread out over my face eventually. I kissed him back fiercely. “Though I wouldn’t be so sure if you will actually be able to ride tomorrow morning.” I pressed him down onto the soft blanket and climbed on top of him. “Not after I am done with you tonight.”  
∞∞∞  
When I woke, it was dark all around, the sun just sending its last and increasingly cool rays of light over the tips of the trees, colouring their peaks in an orange glow, but close to the ground the darkness was more immediate and thorough already. I shivered, feeling goose bumps creep up and down my bare arms and upon looking down I realized why I had woken in the first place. Both Ra and I still were stark naked, although night was creeping up on us fast. There was a blanket over our bodies, covering the most crucial parts, but for me it still wasn’t enough. I moved as gingerly and slowly as I could, so as not to wake Ra, who had his face buried in my neck comfortably and was at the moment softly snoring into my ear. My sensitive ears made it sound as if there was a small dragon slumbering right next to me and I quietly slipped from the sleeping pallet. As gently as I could I untangled myself from his arms and rolled to get up. In the falling darkness, I roamed the ground for where my armour was strewn around our makeshift camp and then rummaged in my saddlebags for some woollen shirt so that I could put on some warm clothes underneath, before I went to check on the horses.  
Both Ra´s dappled Henna and my dark brown mare stood relaxedly at ease under the copse of trees we had hobbled them to, right off the entrance to the ancient nordic tomb. They nickered softly as I approached and I quickly reached my hand into one of my many pockets to produce a tiny treat for both of them. Their soft muzzles tickled my palms as I stroked their noses lovingly. Henna had been a gift for Ralof from Galmar and Jarl Ulfric after the successful completion of the Stormcloak rebellion, for heroic and honourably selfless deeds to the cause of the rebellion, and Ralof cherished this horse almost as much as he would a best friend. He really loved her so much and held her abilities in a very high regard, so in exchange for that she was ever faithful, staunch and utterly devoted to him like no other horse I have ever seen before. It was more like she was a watchdog than an ordinary mount and just like a particularly faithful dog she was a better guard than most soldiers I knew. So, with her being ever vigilant, watching over us at all times, we practically never needed to pay particular attention to impeding dangers. No matter what, as unfailingly as any sentinel and as soon as any threats or menaces approached, Henna as sure as death and taxes would have us know and warn us with a quite impressing variation of particular shrieks. That way she had probably saved Ra´s life more than once as yet, which made me all the more grateful for her presence and all the more appreciate her ability to keep safe the man that I loved. Having finished the piece of apple I had slipped into her mouth, she nudged my arms, my elbows, my hands, gently nibbling at my fingers and looked at me with pleading eyes. I crooned to her and quickly slipped my hand in the bag once more to produce the rest of the crispy fruit. She seemed to enjoy it as much as she had the other half and snickered and snuffled contently when I started to undo the straps of her harness and began to unsaddle her. I carried all the rest of our belongings across the short distance to underneath the small rock outcropping, where Ra was still slumbering unmoving and I first brushed Henna down completely, before turning to my own steed. A quick and strong youngling of only three years I had bought her only a few weeks ago, in Markath, which was why she did not have a name yet. Her deeds would provide an appropriate name, in time. Until now though, she had been as trusting and faithful and good as I could have hoped for and I was very content with her performance.  
Leaving the horses behind, I arranged our remaining supplies in a small circle on my last remaining clean shirt on the floor next to Ralof and, taking my bow and a quiver full of new arrows, I nimbly descended the rocky slope, intermitted with patches of abundant and mostly green vegetation, to the healthily gurgling little stream at the base of the rock massif I had discovered in the morning, when we had tethered our horses out of the line of sight of anyone who might be passing by on the distant road, many leagues beneath us in the lush plains of Falkreath Hold. It took me mere minutes to reach the water down below, jumping from rock to rock and nimbly hopping across deep abysses and dividing cliffs, I descended what must have amounted to a few hundred feet in practically no time at all. Later though, the ascent would take up much more time than this sporty way down, but for now I deemed it worth the strain and the additional time in the dim light of falling darkness it would cost to find the right foot and handholds in the breaking darkness. But right now, I was looking forward to a refreshing bath in anticipation, cleaning away all that remained of the previous fight and the ancient dust of the pristine grave that seemed to have settled in my every pore.  
I stripped to my loincloth and quickly immersed myself completely in the clear water. The gorge was not really deep, standing up straight, at its lowest point the water reached only to about the height of my chest, and I had to dive deep to completely immerse myself into the refreshing cleanness. The water was so cold, my muscles protested almost audibly during the first few painful seconds, but after a while in the gurgling paradise my body quickly adapted and I felt myself relax as the purging water flowed all around me. What tension sex and sleep hadn’t already taken care of, the water finally finished off and I was completely at ease when I finished scrubbing clean and the last rays of the setting sun finally disappeared behind the mountains and the sharp gorge we were camping in was increasingly bathed in darkness. It was never completely and utterly dark in Skyrim, not like in other parts of this world, cause here in the northernmost hemisphere of Tamriel the stars glowed almost as lucid as the big double moons shined bright and depending on the season, on top of that there were the luminously coruscating polar lights.  
I felt a fish nibble at my toes and dived one last time. As I made my wading way back to the bank where I had left my clothes and weapons in a tangled heap, wringing my hair and renewing the ponytail I had made my custom to wear at almost all times, I caught sight of a softly flickering orange glow, suggesting that Ralof had finally woken from his nap above and was fit for dinner. At the thought of a warming fire and of filling food, my stomach grumbled audibly and I realized that neither of us had indeed eaten since we had entered that true repository of a tomb almost eighteen hours ago now. Ralof was probably already waiting for me, looking out for my return, so that we could sup together and therefore I was quick to don the rest of my clothes, gathering the more complicated bits of my armour in my hands. It was unlikely that there was anyone around for miles, so I didn’t want to bother with all the straps and latches. After all, I had my bow and arrows and I did not want to keep Ra waiting longer than absolutely necessary.  
And indeed, just as I shouldered my comprehensive belongings and slung them in a bundle across my shoulder – I would need both hands for the climbing – I noticed a dark silhouette against the evening sky, a darker splotch of black in front of the extensive obscureness of nightfall. His fair hair undone and wearing nothing except for his loincloth and a gossamer tunic, I was already starting to shiver with cold, seeing him standing there like that in the chilly breeze of night-time Skyrim even though I wore enough to feel rather warm and comfortable myself. But I could not deny that this sight also had certain other, more pleasant effects.  
“Here you are,” said Ra and jumped from the massive boulder in a single leap. The piece of rock easily amounted to double his height, but that did not unfaze him and he landed gracefully in a premeditated crouch on the river bank, only yards from me. “I was beginning to wonder if you had gone back to kill some more Draugr. After all, I don’t want you to get lost in there.” He indicated the towering massif to our left with the tomb at its base. Then he turned back to the gurgling stream and to me. “Did you have a bath?”  
“Sure did. I don’t like carrying the dust and grime of centuries on me when I get to know the family of my boyfriend. I figured it´d probably better help my case if I appeared tidy and clean. After all, you never get a second chance on a first impression. And we don’t wanna blow the only chance I have to get them to like me.”  
“Probably not,” Ra agreed. “Will you wait for me?”, he asked, slipping his tunic over his head even as he finished his question and he balled it into a small wad and threw it at me, playfully. He had already been barefoot.  
“But only because it´s you,” I teased. I caught the shirt out of the air easily and sat down comfortably at the edge of the water, knees hugged tight to my chest, chin resting on top of them.  
“I´ll hurry”, he grinned and dove into the sharp water much as I had before. I shrugged my shoulders when his head resurfaced, spraying small drops of water in a drizzle all around. The stars caught the light of the drops clinging to his softly tanned skin and I couldn’t help but stare.  
“Well, I don’t mind waiting,” I said. “Not with all that to look at.” Ra winked but suddenly and quite unexpectedly he lashed out his hand and I had no time to doge the huge swell of water he sent my way. I quickly stood and darted away but it was too late, I was already quite thoroughly drenched from the waist on downwards and soaking. I wanted to feel at least a little bit mad at him, but just couldn’t. Instead, I laughed, even though after a certain time it started to get really, really cold down there. It was all I could do to repress the rattling chatter of my teeth.  
“By the way,” I called after a while of mutual silence. By the looks of it, Ra was just finishing, preparing to leave the waters and re-join me for dinner. “Do we have a gift for Frodnar?”  
“Wouldn’t be a proper birthday without one, would it?”  
I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, I sure never got anything for any of my birthdays. My people usually are not exactly the giving kind. Also, as an elf you don’t want to create any obligations to honour another´s birthday for several hundreds of years. That could become quite the nuisance very quickly. Frankly, I have never truly understood the point in all this gift giving business anyways. It sure cannot be the only way to tell people you like them.”  
“Well, it does make sense when you grew up with it,” Ra answered before he furrowed his brows pensively. “So, you have really never ever received a birthday present?”  
“Apart from my father telling me that the best and hitherto only present I would ever get from him was life itself, no, never. And towards the end he was convinced, even that generous gift was too much to be wasted on me…” I stared off into the distance and remembered our fallout. It had been decades ago, but I could still picture it as if it had been yesterday. I just couldn’t look at it as remotely and hard-nosed as I would have liked to feel about all the family stuff from my former life. I felt Ra studying me out of the corner of his eyes.  
“Your father sure sounds like a true pain in the ass,” he assessed. “I hope I´ll never have to meet him.”  
“I hope so too. I don’t think the two of you´d get along particularly well. So, what is it? What do you got for little Frodnar?”  
Ra´s lips curled at the corners and his mouth was widening into a big grin that promptly created the two typical dimples on his cheeks which I loved so much. “That´s a surprise,” he said but didn’t evaluate.  
I arched my brows. “For me or for him?”  
“For both of you,” he answered cryptically.  
“Okay, now I am intrigued. And a tiny little bit curious as well. Is there no chance you are going to let me in on this?”  
“Nope,” he said and decisively shook his head, spraying me with cold drops of water that flew wide from the tips of his hair. “You´ll have to be patient and wait till Loredas.”  
“Fine.” I decided to change the subject. “Do you wanna come out of there soon? I´m starting to freeze.” This got to him quicker than anything else; after all, he knew how intolerant and sensitive to cold I was and knew as well as I did that this was not something I could endure for a lengthy period of time. Elves were just not made for this bleak and harsh country and I craved the warmth of the friendly fire Ralof had sparked up there on the rocky outcropping in our cosy little camp, currently indeed visible but just out of reach, many yards above us. Ra took one last dip beneath the surface and started wading towards me slowly, ploughing the water like a particularly sexy and handsome sea-lion.  
“And you are really sure that it is okay if I come along? After all, it is supposed to be a family thing only, right? I don’t wanna be in the way. I hope this is not gonna be awkward or anything. I could –“  
“Tabu, don’t. The next time you ask me that question, I may finally say no at long last.” Ralof turned to look at me, staring into the depths of my eyes, all the while not blinking once. “Seriously. I have told you before and I am gonna say it again. It really is not a problem. I´d love you to be around. That is, if you want to. If you want to come along, I want you there. If not, of course, it´s gonna be okay if you´re not.” He shrugged, appearing a little at a loss.  
“Of course I wanna come. I want to be with you, no matter where you go. But the actual question was if your family is going to be okay with it. If they want us.”  
“Sure, why wouldn’t they want us,” he said flatly. He seemed to scan the entire waterside in the dim light of the moon and stars and was apparently searching for something he just couldn’t locate. “Where´s it gone?”, he mumbled distractedly. “Do you know where my shirt is?”  
I looked down and quickly untangled my hands. I hadn’t even noticed I still held his tunic, let alone my hands working it frantically, kneading and working the soft fabric of his fine attire until it barely resembled a piece of clothing any more. It was knotted and twisted almost beyond recognition and when I smoothed it with my hands and desperately tried to shake out the worst crinkles, I only made things worse, so that I finally gave up guiltily and just handed him the ruined thing. He didn’t seem to notice. When I looked him up and down intently, I tried to read his feelings at the same time. He was just getting out of the water and quickly turning to pick up his stuff, so I couldn’t be sure about anything, but I decided to ask anyways.  
“So …. did you tell them about me eventually? Do they know?” I tried to make it sound as casual as possible and not as if my whole consciousness both dreaded and anticipated the answer equally desperate. I hadn’t meant it to sound like an accusation, but even for my own ears it seemed to be a sign of a fair share of discontentment and to even contain a certain measure of demand. I did not want to press him, after all it was his decision alone. But still, there was something eating away inside of me, working my guts and innermost feelings and I felt it would soon have to escape and burst free, but I wasn’t sure if our relationship was ready yet for this kind of thing, for that measure of fundamental talk. Ralof turned away quickly and when he reached to dry himself off with his tunic I couldn’t help but notice his hands were shaking slightly, even in the sparse twilight and a barely full moon and the softly twinkling stars. He had his lips pressed into a firm line and didn’t answer. “Ra, please talk to me,” I said quietly. I didn’t take my eyes off of him, though he didn’t seem to notice. He still had his back turned to me, didn´t want to look at me. “I am not demanding anything else right now, but please talk to me. What is going on?”  
“I don’t really wanna talk about this.” Ra wrung his hair and as a cool breeze made my goose bumps reappear, I noticed him trembling uncomfortably too. Ra, who was never cold. Ra, whom I had never seen shiver before.  
“But this is one of the things I love most about us. That we can talk about anything. That there are no secrets between us.” He only shook his head and continued to busy his hands and himself with getting redressed but finally he was finished with that and couldn’t do anything else than just stand there, shoulders slumped, the happiness and bantering ease of only minutes ago quickly forgotten as he tried to avoid me. I pulled myself into a standing position and approached slowly. “Ra, please, don’t shut me out. Tell me what´s bothering you.”  
He seemed to be frozen, standing to face the gurgling water of the happy little stream. “No,” he said finally. Uncharacteristically flat and almost devoid of any emotions. At least, it would seem so to perfect strangers. But then, I was no stranger to him and his carefully controlled façade and to what he hid underneath and what he only occasionally let fly free when we were truly and utterly alone with each other. Like now. I felt the conflict warring in him and wanted him to talk about it. To confide in me. “No, I haven’t told them,” he whispered.  
But you said you would, I could have said. You wanted to. You promised. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days with you in hiding. We should be able to live our love like every other couple in this world. We deserve that at least. But I bit my lip forcefully, set my jaw and tried to swallow my disappointment. Very, very slowly – almost as if in slow motion – he turned to face me. “And I won´t. Not now. I am sorry, Tabu, but I can´t. Telling them would… I don’t know… I just cannot get myself to do it. My father has only ever brought Gerdur and me woe and sorrows and neigh endless trouble in his time. I don’t want to add another burden to her shoulders. Hod would hate me, but Gerdur… Gerdur would be disappointed and even –“ he nearly choked on the word ”– disgusted. And I love my sister, Tabu; She is not a bad person. I don’t think I could take her contempt. They think I am bringing one of my fighting mates. Another Stormcloak. And that´s the story I am going to stick to.”  
I took a deep breath, willing Ralof not to notice my frustration. After all, who was I to judge him? How could I condemn him? Would I act any different if it was my family we were talking about? Could I? I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from him here, but there was clearly a sense of growing disappointment nesting just underneath my surface which definitely just clawed its way to the surface and wanted to break free. I did sympathize with him – I daresay there are not many people on earth who could better understand what his conscience had to be going through right now – but from a perspective purely based on our partnership, what he said still stung like hell. After all, one wanted one´s partner to be proud of his relationship, to feel for his spouse, not only clandestinely but openly and officially and not constraining us to hide and sneak around forever like a pair of naughty, undisciplined adolescents. Even though I knew of and perfectly understood the conflicting emotions that must be warring inside of him well enough to keep feeling for him, I felt I could not just let this go quite that easily.  
“Oh, and you waited with telling me until… when exactly? Now? If I hadn’t asked, when would you have kindly informed me? When we´d stood in front of your family and you were doing the introductions? Would that still have been too early for you? You could at least have had the decency to inform me of your perfect little plan.”  
“I… I didn’t know how to say it,” he didn’t meet my eyes and continued to stare at his naked feet. At least he looked contrite enough for me to be sure that he felt at least as awful as I did right now. “I didn’t want you to hate me for it, but it´s true: I cannot tell them. Not yet, maybe not ever. I don’t want them to hate me.”  
“Okay, whatever,” I said and tried to resign. I shrugged my shoulders and wanted to make him believe it was not a big deal for me. I could have saved the act, because he didn’t look at me anyways.  
He shook his head as if he wanted to shoo away some flies or shake the last of the water out of his still soaked hair or from the tips of the fine curves of his lashes. Even in the dim twilight I could see his mesmerizing eyes sparking and almost brimming with emotion. But his face was hard, his jaw set. He shook his head again. “I am sorry Tabu, but I feel –”  
“I said it´s okay,” I interrupted, making as if to turn and climb back into our little camp, ending this discussion once and for all. “It´s fine. It doesn’t matter.”  
“Why, then, does it feel like I am betraying you?” whispered Ralof, barely audible. I didn’t bother with an answer, but simply started to move up the natural riverbed. Ra reached out for me and started to follow when still I didn’t react. “Please, don’t be mad at me.”  
“I am not mad.”  
“Tabu, wait!” Ra hurried to catch up with me and finally managed to shimmy past and block my path. His hair was still streaming rivulets of pristine river water and the fat drops falling onto his fine woollen cloak coloured his collar a darker shade of blue. His eyes were very much alive and his brows drawn together in a manifestation of the emotions warring in him and of what passed between us. “If you are not mad, then what are you?”  
I shrugged and tried to push past him. He wouldn’t let me. I had my hands balled into tight fists in my pockets and I hunched my shoulders to escape the creeping chill indicating the night had fallen properly at long last, the sun having escaped this hemisphere to leave this world in darkness for another night. Maybe a night that would change everything. “Who cares,” I said. “It doesn’t matter anyways. I am starving. Let´s go have something to eat.”  
“No. I can see that you are definitely not fine with it. I want to talk this out now. We cannot let something like that stand between us,” said Ra.  
“Really? A minute ago, you were the one who didn’t want to say anything at all and now you get all talky on me?” I wheeled and jabbed my index finger in his chest and just couldn’t help but glare at him. “I don’t know what you´d want me to say anyways; it´s all very clear to me. I love you, but you don’t want people to know. You are ashamed of me. I guess that´s just it. What else is there to say?”  
“That´s not what I said. And I never meant anything like it,” yelled Ra suddenly and his all at once booming voice carried wide, startling a flock of grouse in a bush nearby into frenzy flight. He continued softer, but no less intent: “I –“  
“It´s no big deal,” I hissed. Shrugging again I desperately tried to mask the beginning tremble of insecurity and the icy cold of dread manifesting itself in a cramping clump in the pit of my stomach and instead tried to turn it into something resembling anger or rage. “It´s not like you are the first one who doesn’t want to be seen with someone like me. I get it. I guess I am just not good enough for a proud and mighty Nord like you. Maybe you should do it like the rest of your strange and emotionally weird people and just let your skilled sister choose a fitting spouse for you. Maybe that will make you happier!”  
Ralof scrunched up his face and his features contorted into a mask of grief and woe. “That´s not true. And it´s not what all of this is about. I… Tabu, I love you. Doubt anything else, but never doubt me in this.”  
He tried to reach out for me again but his strong arms fell to his sides helplessly as I pulled back further and kept out of his reach, all the while keeping him out of my reach at the same time. Seeing him fighting like this, seeing how bad he felt and how hard the awful things I had said got to him, I had never wanted to hug him tighter, never wanted to have him closer and never been more desperate to feel him by my side as I did now. I wanted to hold him, calm him, assure him that all was fine, that we would work something out, that I would gladly and readily sacrifice my pride and everything else I got, just to be with him, to see him happy. It had not been my intention to hurt him. After all, he was the love of my life. And no one else could or would ever do again. But somehow, I just couldn’t. The hurt in Ra´s sparkling eyes tore at my heart with big and volatile fists, wreaking havoc inside my chest in its wake and my inner voice screamed at me in silent pleading but still, I couldn’t let this go, still, my foolishness pressed on, destroying everything that was making me happy. “Oh really? Do you? Because right now, it sure as Oblivion does not exactly feel that way!”  
“I most certainly do! It´s just… my family… they are… they wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t care. Please, you of all people have to understand. Gerdur is all that is left of my family. She and Frodnar are the only relatives I have and… I am not ready to disappoint them. I don’t want to lose them as well. Not over something like this… I just…” He drifted off, voice catching in his throat, momentarily lost for words, but he never took his eyes off mine.  
I threw my head back. “Great. Now this is awesome. I didn’t know I was so trivial to you. Forgive me when I assumed our relationship was for real. Forgive me if I thought what we had was something serious. Something special and deep. When in truth you don’t appear to give a shit about what I feel, about my feelings. Is it really so much more important to you what your family thinks over what I do?” I saw his jaw work, his lips moving, but no sounds escaped his mouth. He just stood there and looked at me with these big, blue, unsettling eyes, eating my resolve and swallowing my ire, leaving behind a black and empty hole which quickly filled with dread and shame. Dread of what I had done, shame about what I had said. I dropped my shouting voice to a whisper. “Please tell me that this is not just some stupid game for you. Please tell me you were not just playing with me all this time. Because, frankly, I don’t know if I could take it.” When I inhaled deeply, I felt my voice shake and judging from his expression, he had heard too. “Ralof, you have become the most important thing in my life this last two years. I would do anything for you. But I can´t go on like this if I am unsure about everything else. I really, really love you, but… I don’t know what to believe any more.”  
I was close to tears now, not sure any longer if I said these words only to get to him or if I really and truly meant what came out of my stupid, stupid mouth. My lips started to tremble – joining in with the rest of my body – and it took my entire willpower to keep my heartstrings in check and my face straight. To his credit though, Ra seemed to be in an even worse condition himself, his whole body shaking like a brittle leaf in a strong winter wind. He did not even try to hide or shroud his hurt, the pain and surprise about what I had said was openly written across his lovely features, palpably etched all over his contrite face. “What now? Are you just gonna stand there and stare at me forever or are you eventually going to say something? If not, we could abbreviate the rest of it and I´ll just go now. We´d have done with it and you´d be your own man again, free to roam the entirety of Skyrim alone, looking for a proper wife to satisfy your perfect little family. Is that what you want? How you want to live the rest of your life? Don’t you think it´s time for a change?”  
The moment the words escaped my lips I cursed my foolishness, my stupidity, my utterly irresponsible behaviour. I wished I could take everything back, could undo what irrevocable damage I had done. What if he said yes now? What if he actually meant to break up for real? What would I do? How could I hope to cope, how to continue after I let this perfect man go because of something like this? I just couldn’t bear it. I wanted to go to him but couldn’t move a single limb, too afraid of what I had done in my boundless arrogance, fearing I had destroyed everything that had ever been between us with but a few misplaced words and thus signed my doomed and forever lonely fate.  
To my immense relief though, Ralof sprung into motion almost immediately and rushed at me. “No,” he cried, agonized. With a single step, he was upon me and before I consciously realized what was happening he had his arms slung tightly around my torso and nearly crushed my bones between his strong hands, pressing me against him in a fierce embrace. I quickly hugged him tight as well and closed my eyes. I felt his racing hearth thudding wildly in his chest, its drums beating a steady rhythm against my own ribcage, and I could barely breathe. But right now, in this moment, I didn’t care. All that counted for me was Ralof, holding onto him tightly and letting all my anxieties escape in slow and measured exhales while with every intake of breath I could barely grasp my luck. I clung on to him as tightly as he did to me and neither was prepared to let the other go for a very long time.  
“I am so, so sorry,” I whispered into his ear finally, while I knotted my hands into the soft, almost downy material of the tunic I had formerly ruined so inconsiderately. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it. Any of it. I am sorry.”  
“No, I am sorry,” he said at long last and shook his head decisively, before burying his face in my neck again, causing his next words to become muffled and blurred, but lucky me I had the hearing and the ears of a true elf (because, indeed, I really was one) and was therefore under no strain at all to understand his frantic mumble. “I should be the one who has to apologize. For what I demand of you. For what I put you through every single day. I… I do love you, Tabu, and I want to do right by you. I don’t want my actions or decisions to make you unhappy, but I dare not tell my family about you because I am afraid they will reject us. And I want you to get to know them as I do. To like them as I do and see what great persons they are. I did not mean to hurt you in any way and I am heartbroken if I should have. But please, don’t leave me. I can assure you, you are all but trivial to me. I don’t know how I could live without you.” He broke up rather abruptly and stifled a sob. I pulled back minimally, not far enough to slip out of his warming arms but enough to have a look into his tight face. I cupped his cheeks between my fingers and let myself be swallowed by the abysmal depth of the bright blue beacons of hope that were radiating from his quite exceptional irises.  
“I don’t want to leave you, darling. Not for the life of me. Gods forbid, but I have never wanted to be with anyone else as badly as I want to be with you; now, here, in this life. I have waited decades – ages even – for the right man to cross my path and here you are. Immaculate and perfect as I could never have dreamed of you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I´ll be damned if I ever leave you voluntarily. We´ll find a way.” He seemed to relax slightly, exhaled ever so slowly and closed his eyes.  
“But… I am not perfect,” he mumbled quietly.  
“For me you are,” I breathed and pulled his face down slowly so that his lips met mine.  
∞∞∞  
After our fight last night we had agreed – or rather, I had reluctantly consented – to Ra´s version of things. I was still not entirely comfortable to play the part of the casual bystander and act the innocent, mainly but not only because I was sure that his family would not be fooled by my petty performance. After all, I had never been a particularly good actor before. Furthermore, I ached as ever to be as close to Ralof as possible, which turned out to not be possible at all for the next couple of days, as Ra would be – befitting the brother of the town council – sleep in Hod and Gerdur´s private house in the spare bed in their guestroom, while I would be expected to rent a room in the local inn and join the family for official meals and the birthday celebration only, fulfilling my role as an esteemed but distant acquaintance of Ralof´s.  
Far from happy with this arrangement, I grit my teeth and decided to just grin and bear it and make the best out of it. I decided this sacrifice was worth the making, if only it made Ralof feel better. If I did this for him, no sacrifice would be too big for me to commit myself to and I´d gladly put my own desires at rest to see him more at ease. Especially and mainly because he would have done the same for me, without even asking. After I had accepted his wishes, he started to tell me about his hometown and talk about the oncoming visit not with grimness and stress but with relaxed ease and with happy anticipation of the days to come. Which is how a family reunion should always ever be, in my mind. After all, we would be gone again the day after tomorrow – I had agreed to hurry back to Serana and the Dawnguard as fast as possible and Ra had a meeting with the Stormcloak captains in Windhelm I wanted to accompany him to – so I figured we could start slowly and practise his coming out with someone else than his sister, nephew and bother-in-law, which were some of the most important people in his life. It was probably actually even better to start small and unforced and slowly build up to his family. He wasn’t aware of this secret plan of mine yet, but that didn’t matter. Hope dies last, and I was utterly convinced that he would indeed feel much better at once, as soon as he told his family about his true nature, about his innermost self and about me – none of which was a cause to worry about, as none of these things were bad in any way and absolutely no cause to be ashamed of or subjected to more than the usual measure of scrutiny. It was just uncommon and something as yet unknown to most, but that could be changed. So, only time would tell and we´d see how far that plan of mine could succeed till then.  
We actually made pretty good time, beating even Ra´s rough estimate and caught sight of Riverwood behind a bend in the cobbled road between Whiterun and Falkreath about an hour before noon. Ra stopped Henna just outside the sight of the village´s watchtower´s guards behind some tall fir trees and I pulled my chestnut mare up next to him, watching him expectantly. After all, this was his town, his life and his private section, so I would let him lead and silently follow his direction.  
“Here we are,” he said when my mount slowed from its brisk trot into a slower walk and finally stopped altogether. “Riverwood.” He turned to look at me and I saw that his eyes shone bright with anticipation, now that his homeland was in palpable reach. Still, his slightly furrowed brows spoke of at least some level of uneasiness and stress underneath his carefully crafted exterior, but I could also see that he was very happy to finally be reunited with his family, whom he hasn’t seen in person for almost six months now, as he told me, which apparently was the longest he´d ever been from home. Swallowing part of my own emotions, I smiled at him and signalled he should take the lead. Before he spurred Henna again, he inclined his head and said: “I just want you to know, Tabu, that I love you. No matter what may happen in there. I may not be able to show it, as long as we are here, but being with my family really means a lot to me and I am glad that you´ll finally get to know all of them as well. That, for once, everyone that is truly important to me in this world can be together to celebrate. Even if it may be under a wrong pretext. And I appreciate your sacrifice, I really do. I´ll make it up to you as soon as Frodnar´s birthday is over and we are back alone together. But I haven’t –“  
“Let´s not start all over again.” I gently cut him off and gestured ahead. “We talked this through abundantly. I do not like it, but I won´t give us away in there. I don’t want to ruin anything for you. If you feel you´re not ready, you´re not ready. I accept your decision. It´s fine. It may not be what I was hoping for, but I´ll manage. I´m not a little child.” I had spoken with soft determination and he quickly looked away, slightly hurt. I did not actually want to make him feel bad for me, but a small and nasty little part of myself did indeed want to show him clearly how disappointed and uneasy this whole enterprise made me feel. How reluctantly I was doing this and how loud my entire conscience protested against it inside of me. But there was nothing to be gained by picking yet another fight with him, and so I just continued to stare straight ahead and tried to fit in and forced myself to adjust to this new part I had to play convincingly for at least forty-eight hours now. It was a living nightmare, would certainly not be easy and come far from natural to me. But, I had consented to this, so I would not bail out on the last second, just before the act itself was about to start. Ra took my measure with a last, lingering glance, before finally spurring Henna into a slow walk again and we trundled up to the wide and openly beckoning gates and the friendly welcoming atmosphere of Riverwood.  
Riverwood was neither a particularly big nor exceptionally important settlement, about halfway in between Falkreath and Whiterun in a narrow and otherwise pretty empty and deserted river gorge, just at the edge of a high ridge of snow-peaked mountains that ran through the entire length of Skyrim. There was a Smithy, a General Store that sold just about anything anyone entering the only two-story building in town could or would ever need and, next to it, a small and slightly dilapidated looking Tavern at the rear end of the small village. Other than that there were no particularly impressive or vaguely important structures – except the local mill maybe, which was run by Hod, Ralof´s brother-in-law and which was situated off towards the west end of Riverwood, besides the happily gurgling stream which had given the town its dulcet name – and a few isolated farmhouses or living sheds and the camp for some vagrants just outside the city gates proper. Other than that, there was nothing. If nothing else though, lacking anything that could be called impressive or memorable, Riverwood was cosy at least. There were about one hundred inhabitants, all of whom knew one another not only by sight but also by name, profession and personal history, as was common in settlements as small as this one, and about a dozen guardsmen in Stormcloak blues, all of whom seemed to know Ralof pretty well and who greeted him with respect and barely veiled, deferential enthusiasm. Ra returned their nods demurely as we passed into the village proper and he was subsequently greeted openly and warmly there by most everyone who laid eyes on him. It seemed like everyone knew him pretty intimately and he stopped regularly to briefly chat to numerous inhabitants, all of whom seemed to be incredibly delighted to see him again. It had been months since he had been home – I think he indeed hadn’t been here since the successful completion of the rebellion he had established himself so well in – and I came to realize quickly, that I had had no idea whatsoever how truly popular and almost admired he was in his small and snug hometown. He had certainly never told me about it, never let out much detailed information about what he truly was to all these people.  
Suddenly, his resolution about hiding his true nature, his innermost self, almost started to make an abstract sort of sense to me. The esteem of the people you care about, that of all the people who care about you, who sort of rely on you even, is always important to its recipient and it suddenly became clear to me why Ralof was so reluctant to tell his family about me. He was well liked around here – was respected and appreciated just the way he seemed to be in all of Riverwood – and he clearly cared for its citizens. He didn’t want to lose their trust in him and their believe in what he represented, because he secretly felt he would let them down if he disappointed their sentiments about him, their reliance on him and his fellow Nords. Don’t get me wrong here, I still didn’t like having to put up an act in the least – indeed I couldn’t remember ever having had stronger aversions to playing a part than I did right now, it just felt so unnatural to stand by passively when all I wanted was to share his happiness and merriment – but I quickly gained a new and special sort of insight into my partner and in a strange sort of way it finally made sense to me. How truly impossible it must seem sometimes, the two entirely opposite needs and urges he tried to juggle and how hard it was, to make them mutually compatible but still keep them far enough apart for these two aspects of him to never directly meet and never to clash with each other. I understood better now, that he really had not wanted to hurt me in any way, but at the same time he also didn’t want to disappoint all these people that believed in him so strongly, least of all his cherished family. Having gained this important insight, I followed his example and got off the horse to shake hands and be introduced to a whole load of different faces and people with strange and uncommon names with new strength and renewed resolution, who slapped Ralof´s shoulders and cheered or waved at him happily when passing by.  
After answering at least a hundred questions as to his own and Ulfric´s and even Galmar´s well-being, the true story and exact course of the revolution, the siege of Solitude and a bunch of other questions, we were finally left in peace and slowly made our way up a well-trodden path, after a right turn off the main road behind the General Store and along a dried mud track towards the L-shaped manse of the town speaker, Gerdur of Riverwood, who was at the same time Ralof´s elder sister by a score of years or so. Their house was built just besides an almost vertical rockside that ascended at least a hundred yards straight up into the sky and was situated at the easternmost perimeter of Riverwood, protecting this flank quite naturally from all sorts of attacks or assaults. All around their estate a wicker-fence kept the two oxen and a score of chicken in line and at the same time housed a small patch for vegetable and fruit, which was laid out just off the house to the right. Around the house, in loose and seemingly haphazard groups clustered many different kinds of coniferous trees, mostly firs and spruces, but I also discovered some larches and pines, and one or the other broadleaf tree mingled amongst them. All together, they shielded the house from both wind and weather in a storm and from sun and heat in high summer – though in my mind a little bit of sun and warmth couldn’t possibly do any harm to cold and ofttimes dull Skyrim. There was a small wisp of smoke gently meandering from the brick-chimney which seemed to corroborate Ra´s assumption that we were indeed just in time for lunch. We got off the horses again just outside the gate to their premises and as soon as Ra had opened the very loudly creaking gate to lead me and the horses through, Gerdur appeared from behind the cow she had been milking and from one second to the other her serious and deliberate facial expression transformed into a wide and comprehensive smile as she quickly registered whom fate had led into her front yard so conveniently. She got up immediately and dropped everything on the spot, the cow quickly moving out of the way as Gerdur started to run towards us happily.  
“Ralof,” she cried and flew at her brother with arms open wide. “You´ve made it. I am so glad you are here. You have no idea how much all of us have been looking forward to seeing you again!” Then she was upon him, kissed him exuberantly and they hugged each other tightly and with abundant love. Gerdur rocked her brother back and forth and had her eyes closed as she savoured the moment of their happy reunion and held him close.  
Gerdur was a big, but at the same time equally sturdy kind of woman with a resolute and deliberate expression on her face, who looked very much like she was used to command and as if she was accustomed to people obeying her every word and doing exactly what she told them to do. She had lines across her face, but they changed from sombre and almost dismal to happy laugh lines as soon as her lips curled, closely resembling Ra´s face whenever he smiled as happily and openly as his sister did now. They also shared the exact same shade of hair colour, tough and resilient strands of blond that framed their slightly tanned faces, also with the very same unsettling, mesmerizing eyes. Although I had indeed met Ra´s family before, had even talked to Hod and especially to Gerdur before – it had been the day after the dragon´s attack to Helgen, when Ra had brought both of us to the relative safety of his sister´s village – I couldn’t well remember that occasion at all. I had met her, conferred with her and she had even invited me to stay with her family and Ralof for as long as I needed to feel better and my worst wounds were cured, but I had decided to press on immediately instead, wanting to warn the Jarl of Whiterun at that time, Balgruuf the Greater, of the danger of another dragon´s attack on his Hold. That had at that distant past time seemed more important to me. I had been slightly delirious and in quite a lot of pain from several severe burnings and other stuff back then, so I had not consciously noticed her or her husband or even Ra´s nephew Frodnar, all of whom Ra told me I had definitely seen before. My memories of them, however, were blurry at best and close to non-existent at worst, so, for me it felt like I was meeting all of them for the first time again today and I have to say frankly, I was not entirely eager for it. Not after our fight last night.  
After Ra and his sister had disentangled themselves from each other´s arms, Gerdur turned her full attention on me and Ra carefully took care of the introductions. “Gerdur, this is Haithabu. You have met before, but it´s been a long time ago and the circumstances could have been better, so you probably don’t remember each other. But Haithabu has fought with the rest of us in the rebellion and led quite exceptional charges that have helped us considerably to our final success. So, you could say, he was an indispensable and important part of the entire enterprise. Without him, the rebellion would probably not have been able to succeed to quite the extent we have ascertained by now. Haithabu, this is my beloved sister and town speaker of Riverwood, Gerdur.”  
“Nice to meet you,” was all I said as I bowed to her deeply and reluctantly reached out to shake her expectantly extended hand. She had a tight grip, another indicator revealing that usually she was the one who was in charge. As a true and accordingly brought up elf I preferred bowing to the exchange of these unsettling handshakes these Northerners all seemed to like so much, but I had vowed to do everything in order to appear normal and fit in with this fateful society on this telling weekend, so I fought my reluctance down and struggled to plaster a fake smile onto my lips to match my words. “Ralof has told his companions quite a lot about you and it is an honour for me to at long last meet the woman he holds in such a high regard.”  
Gerdur, on the other hand, scrutinized me closely and seemed to come to a favourable conclusion, as she proved flattered and cajoled by these honeyed words and presented me with a bright smile before she answered. “The honour is mine,” she said and bowed in turn, probably only now remembering that this was in fact the ultimate gesture of respect where all sorts of elves were regarded. Her curtsey was deep and lasted just about the right number of seconds to neither appear exaggerated nor shallow and her eyes shone with mirth when she came up to meet mine once again. “But I do in fact remember you, though frankly you look a lot healthier and much happier than the first time I met you.” I looked across to Ralof, but he had already averted his eyes quickly and was studying a tuft of grass beneath his furry boots. “And it is so nice of you to accompany Ralof here. It´s been ages since he brought a friend, much less one of his fighting pals; there was a time when I was convinced my brother didn’t want his family to embarrass him in front of his companions from out there in the wide, wide world.” She winked and nudged her brother in the side playfully, who towered almost an entire head over her and looked more embarrassed now than I had ever seen him look before. So, Gerdur was probably right about that. Even though I could fairly say I knew that it was only half of the truth. “But, don’t worry,” she continued finally, when neither man said anything, “you´ll find that we are perfectly normal people, Haithabu. Nothing unusual or especially abnormal going on around here, and that´s just the way we like it.” I bit my lips and started to avoid her eyes as well. If that didn’t make things clear, I don’t know what did.  
Gerdur frowned as still both Ralof and I proved rather unresponsive and unusually still, but she quickly caught herself and showed me where I could tether our horses until there was time to unsaddle and brush them down after lunch, which seemed to be just about ready to be served in only a few minutes. Gerdur was leaning in close to her brother and they were quickly immersed in exchanging the basics of news of all of the stuff that had happened in their lives since they last met and hadn’t corresponded in length in all the numerous letters they wrote to each other at least once a week. Of course, Ra left out the most telling and from my point of view, apart from the completion of the revolution maybe, the most important thing that had changed in his life this eventful past two years, but that came as no surprise to me anymore, so I tried to turn a deaf ear and ignore the still slightly protesting voice of my conscience, raging away inside my head.  
“Hod´s working the mill,” beamed Gerdur, in answer to one of Ra´s numerous questions, her arm still slung around him loosely, ambling towards the house and leaving me to tether the horses to their designated poles. “But Frodnar has to be around here somewhere. I think he just ran off, chasing some chicken or other. He should be back any second now.”  
Just then we all heard a piercing cry and turned as one to see Ra´s nephew Frodnar run towards us with surprising speed, crying “Uncle Ralof, Uncle Ralof, Uncle Ralof!” in incessant reiteration. He had carried a hen, comfortably nestled inside the crook of his arm, but as soon as he caught sight of his favourite and so far only uncle, he threw it away – the hen protested vociferously, but no one noticed and nobody cared – and took off at a sprint. Ralof swept him up in his arms for a tight hug and ruffled his hair affectionately as soon as he had put Frodnar´s feet back down on the ground again. As Gerdur caught me watching the happy reunion from tending the horses, she smiled at me. I quickly dropped my eyes and vanished behind the house to fasten the bridle of Henna and my horse so that neither of them could dare to move off or away before I couldn’t look after them and take care of their wellbeing, just as soon as Gerdur and the healthy stew I smelled in the distant air had taken care of part of my problems. I heard my stomach grumble audibly and hurried back towards the open door, to enter the cool and slightly dim interior of Gerdur´s abodes.  
I caught sight of Ralof setting the table, while Frodnar, who still hopped around erratically and shrieked his delight about the return of his beloved uncle for all the world to hear, tried to take care of the drinks. Gerdur stood at the fireplace, adding some last touches to the food and regarded both her son and her brother with love and affection speaking from her entire posture. I felt like an unwanted intruder and just contemplated leaving this happy little family paradise altogether, as Ra turned and his eyes immediately lit up in turn, flashing even in the dim light of the murkily illuminated living room table. As soon as Ra spotted me entering, he was by my side in a second, albeit he was careful not to touch me in any untoward way or even look at me wrongly, keeping his eyes alternating between his nephew and the not very interesting boards of the floor between his boots, neither meeting my nor his sister´s eyes directly.  
Frodnar came to a stop right in front of me and stood staring up into my face for what felt like an incredibly long time, though it couldn’t have been more than a few short seconds, as with that measure of hyperactivity and agility, Ra´s nephew was very unlikely to remain motionless or even remotely still for more than the barest of moments. He cocked his head to the side when I just stood there and looked right back into these big and curious eyes of his. “Get me mad, and I'll prank ya,” he said finally and a mean little grin spread across the features that didn’t resemble neither his mother´s nor his uncle´s facial traits in the least. He must be his father´s son, then. “And not a little. A lot… You get me?”  
“Frodnar,” scolded Gerdur reproachfully as she set the steaming pot on the middle of the used looking wooden table and shook her head at her son. “What have I told you about being nice to your guests? Where are your manners? Now be a good boy and go get your father, or the food will run cold before Hod remembers to show up.”  
“Uncle, who is that?”, asked Frodnar instead of obeying his mother and turned to Ralof with inquiring curiosity. They said there was nothing to match a child´s nosiness and looking at Frodnar like that, I was inclined to believe the rumours must indeed be true. Gerdur had joined us and stood behind Frodnar now, resting her hands on the slight shoulders of her only child. She watched me curiously as well, her eyes alternating between Ra and me and she seemed to notice that something was slightly off, that neither of us was at his best or at his most relaxed, albeit she looked at me much friendlier than her self-assured son and suddenly I could not shake the feeling that she knew everything. That is, everything Ra and I tried to hide from her and shield her family from. She clearly loved her brother and would probably accept his choices no matter what. Even if that entailed having to put up with me, but that didn’t mean that Ra was any readier to let things out into the open now, much less that his family was ready to hear the truth. Frodnar, in the meantime, narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. He indicated my elongated and pointy ears. “ Are you an elf?”  
I slowly nodded, but before I could say anything, Ra had started the introductions. “Frodnar, you may not remember him from before, but this is my… a distant friend, Haithabu.” I didn’t dare look at him at this moment, lest my face show Frodnar, but most of all watchful Gerdur, exactly what I was feeling within. I knew Ralof could not openly be who he was and I knew how he feared the whole family would cast him out and eject him from amongst their midst forever, but surely, he could not go his entire life in hiding. There was no shame in who he was – or who we were – and I thought by now he would maybe be ready to truly come out, at least to the persons he loved most in this world, namely his sister and his nephew. I had – to this very second – hoped he would maybe see reason, just as soon as we arrived and he´d see that it would make absolutely no sense to continue with this ridiculous act of distance between us, pretending comradery and the respect we had earned in some shared campaigns during the revolution was all I felt for him, pretending there wasn’t so much more intimacy simmering underneath my surface, desperate to be near him, desperate to make his family see how lucky I was to love him, how happy we were together. But either it was still too early or he was still afraid they would shun him and condemn him for it, so he stuck with friend. And not only friend, distant friend it was. Was he kidding me? I did not want to rush him, had agreed to keep my mouth shut about any of this, did not want him to do anything he might later regret, but hearing him talk about me like that, him reducing our relationship to a mere comradery, barely more than a superficial acquaintance, hurt all the same. As did the way he said it, voice even and lips smiling, although the smile didn’t reach his eyes and I very much hoped it also didn’t reach his heart. Because it certainly didn’t reach mine, and I felt like I wanted to throw up, suddenly not really hungry any more. I was wondering if I was indeed strong enough to pull that off for the entire three days Ra wanted to stay here and wondered, if our relationship would indeed still be the same afterwards. Was our love even ready yet, to be put under that kind of strain?  
When Gerdur urged her son a second time – a little more insistent and commanding now – Frodnar ran off to get his father and indeed returned only minutes later with an expectant and clearly very hungry Hod in tow, who sat down at the table and commenced the meal without so much as looking at the others who were sitting around the table with him – only grunting a very short and probably not really respectful greeting towards Ra and quickly taking care of his lunch. He was ignoring me altogether. He didn’t look up again until he had finished his first bowl and gestured for his wife to refill his cup. Gerdur scowled and her displeasure about this taken-for-grantedness of her obedient service to him was written about her lovely face very visibly, but she didn’t say anything right now, as Hod seemed to notice me for the very first time and quite openly and utterly uninhibitedly stared at me and he soon started to look me up and down slowly with steadily narrowing eyes. I refused to be the first one to look away and returned his glance openly and without moving a muscle. Finally, he narrowed his eyes a fraction more and reached for a piece of bread.  
“So, you are Ralof´s famous friend, huh?” Hod said by way of greeting and continued to eye me sceptically over the edge of his bowl. I imagined a slightly disapproving connotation to his accurate assessment, but this could also have been imaginative. After all, I was not in the best of moods myself and as yet, I was more than ready to grant Hod the benefit of the doubt. “He talks a lot about you, you know?”  
“Hod, I don’t think...,” started Ra, but was quickly silenced as Hod shot a quieting look his way.  
“He does?” I turned and looked at my partner pointedly, my brows arched high on my forehead. Ra desperately tried to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible and was clearly not comfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. Gerdur watched us with a curious expression on her face as I turned back to Hod. “How nice of him.” I could feel Ralof balling his fist beneath the table next to me but he didn’t look at me, only continued to stare into his stew. There was tension in the air and even Frodnar seemed to feel it, because I had never heard him not talk for such a lengthy period of time. But he was completely silent now, alternating to watch all the adult members of his family and once in a while even goggling at me with big and curious eyes. “So, what does he say about me?”, I wanted to know, at long last taking the first spoonful of the actually quite delicious soup. Gerdur might be headstrong and full of spirits, but she was apparently also a very good cook and knew what she was doing.  
Hod grunted and continued to ladle his soup in big mouthfuls. “Well, for starters he didn’t mention you were an elf,” he said and I don’t know if it was only my imagination now, but I think I definitely heard him sneer.  
“Hod, please,” Ralof tried again, but still no one would listen to him.  
“Is that a problem?”, I asked pointedly, my warrior instincts suddenly kicking in and preparing me for the possibility of a fight. I did not want to antagonize Ra´s family in the very first hour after having initially met them, but Hod was not exactly subtle in his apparent and immediate dislike of me, so I in turn did feel obligated to show him what would await him if he went too far too soon. Ralof´s fist was still balled on his knee and his leg was kicking nervously but only I could see all of this. On his other side, Gerdur had stopped eating as well.  
Hod grunted yet again and seemed to register nothing of the awkwardness and the compound uneasiness his words had sown. “Well, he was always going on about your fighting abilities and you´re prowess in battle, so I naturally assumed you´d be a little bit more… formidable. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you´d not even be a proper man now. Ralof never had a particular good hand when it came to choosing friends.”  
“HOD!”, said both Ra and Gerdur at the same time, with the same shocked demeanour and the same unbelieving expression on their similar faces. Ra just looked at me with big and sad eyes and Gerdur exhibited an impressive scowl on her otherwise lovely face.  
“What´s gotten into you?”, she hissed, before turning to me. “Apologies, Haithabu. My husband certainly meant no disrespect. He just isn’t… used to foreigners quite as much as he should be.” They continued to measure wills with their stares alone and I felt my patience wear thin. I either had to punch this ass straight in his moustached face or else, I had to get away from this weird family reunion quickly, lest my anger found another vent and escaped in a rather unwanted direction and hit someone I truly cared about.  
“It´s not that,” sneered Hod, still eating, “I just don’t like elves!”  
“HOD!”, Gerdur and Ra cried again and I finally had enough for good. I pushed away the still almost brimming full bowl of stew and got up quickly. Ra reached out his hand, but quickly seemed to notice he could not touch me the way he probably wanted to in front of the disapproving stares of his assembled family, so he let his hand drop to his side again limply and tried to meet my eyes with a beseeching expression. But no matter what he wanted or did not want me to do, I´ve truly had enough of this sham and had to get out of here, lest I exploded myself, and that would become messy and was certainly not so nice for neither Ra nor his sister. I didn’t care what Hod thought.  
“If that is the case, I think I should maybe just go,” I said and got up to quickly march out of the house.  
“Tabu, no,” I could hear Ra whisper wretchedly behind me but didn’t turn and didn’t care. I couldn’t spend another minute underneath this roof and I certainly wouldn’t let Hod insult me further without being able to retaliate properly. I had tried to swallow my doubts and do the reasonable thing, do what Ralof wanted. But if his family continued to antagonize and provoke me like that, I felt no need whatsoever to remain with them for longer than absolutely necessary.  
∞∞∞  
I stumbled and almost fell over one of the chicken that ambled about in the front yard and cursed at the poor animal with feeling. It didn’t deserve this harsh treatment, but then, neither did I. But nobody whatsoever gave a damn about what I felt. Not even Ra, who should have known better, who should have cared. And, believe it or not, even an elf feels when he is loathed and human or not, it stung. Mightily. But I just couldn’t reproach Ra for any of it, seeing how he truly seemed to thrive in the presence of his family, how much they loved each other and cared for one another. No matter what, I didn’t want to rip Ra out of this close and intimate circle of his beloved ones and the protected Riverwood environment, much less than I wanted to rip Ra apart from the inside out. This was as important to him as he was important to me and there was nothing I could do or even wanted to do about it. But it didn’t mean that I belonged here with him, that I should have accompanied him to this peaceful oasis of his family in the first place. I´d tend to the horses now, wait a few hours till my mare had regained all her strength and would ride on, maybe wait for Ra a day´s journey ahead, somewhere off the road, where I could spend the weekend alone with my horse and at peace with the quietness of nature around me, hunting in the abundant woods and grassy plains around Whiterun, and Hod´s family could have their fun with the birthday party tomorrow, without an annoying elf to stand in their way and hinder the festivities.  
I positively fumed with repressed rage when I arrived at the horses´ sides, and quickly started to work part of my anger off by petting both their necks and foreheads and muzzles and after only very little I felt my rage vanish, vaporizing into the bright noon sun that shone onto my back and warmed from the outside the ice that had formed in my veins. It was always the same, had always ever been the same for me. With very few exceptions (Ra, for example), I usually felt much better and comfortable in the sole company of mellow and good-natured animals than with most other human beings, and what could not exactly be said about most two-legged specimens, being with gentle Henna had kind of a therapeutic effect on me and I soon felt disillusioned enough to assess the situation at hand with the necessary distance and detachment it required. Maybe I had been too impulsive, too quick to let Hod provoke me. After all, I could have known before, that Ra´s brother-in-law was not the easiest man to get along with. Did I overreact? Had I just played into his hands by reacting as I had reacted? Had he been unfriendly and detesting on purpose, trying to take my measure? Had I failed some sort of test? In the end, was I any better than he was, if I was so easy to manipulate, so easy to get thrown off track?  
I turned and buried my head in the soft and thick fur of Henna´s neck, who nickered softly, apparently feeling my discomfort and the overwhelming need to be consoled. She gently nuzzled at my back while I stroked her soft and warm nostril and traced the sensitive skin around her big muzzle. “Sweetheart,” I whispered and sighed and she pricked her ears in the direction of my voice as I started to speak. I don’t know why, but I had always ever been so much better with animals than I was with people – no matter which kind of people. If all people could be like animals, the world would be a lot easier for me to understand. But then, I guess, I would be even more lonely in it, for I would not even have found the one man in it that I could finally be totally at ease with and who actually loved me back as much as I loved him. Most times, anyway. I continued melancholically. “So, what do I do? I feel like I don’t belong, like I am utterly superfluous and unwelcome here. Should I go?”  
Henna jerked her head suddenly and quite forcefully and seemed to look at something or someone right behind me. I turned to see Ra standing at the corner of the shed, only a few feet away from me, yet it seemed like a whole sea of impossibilities was separating us and no matter how far our arms and hearts would extend towards the other, we could never truly reach each other ever again. His face bore a pained expression and his cheeks were coloured red. He regarded me sadly.  
“No,” he said quietly and shook his head imploringly, “please don’t go. You are not superfluous. I need you and I want you here with me. Hod, he´s just…” He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know… But I would like you to stay. Please. Gerdur and Frodnar were actually quite excited to meet you and I think they truly like you. Hod is another story and I have had to ignore most of his moods since Gerdur married him. He thinks he can treat me like a son or some such, because he is so much older than me, but he´s not half bad when you get used to him. He´s not a mean guy, even though what he said in there was not nice at all.”  
“It´s not fair, Ra,” I said, breathing deeply, fighting against the urge to get closer to him, to touch him, and so I finally started to undo the saddle straps of Henna and her companion to give my hands a task and to stop me from staring at him intently, while Ra just stood off to the side, working his hands and watching me pensively. “It´s just not fair.”  
“I know,” he conceded finally. “But that is the way of the world. Life is unfair, it has always been. There is nothing we or anyone else can do about it.”  
“Isn´t there?”, I said, but didn’t wait for an answer. I knew even before I asked that I wouldn’t get one. “It´s because people like Hod exist that people like us have to be as secretive and afraid of everything as you are.” I quickly checked his objection with a raised finger. “I know, I know. I mean no offense, but it is the truth. If the world was just a little bit more open and tolerant about live styles that differ from what they call the “norm”, we would have much less to worry about and I wouldn’t sit in there, longing to kiss you, to touch you or even just to hold your hand like everyone apparently does it all the time nowadays, while in truth not being able to do any of that out of fear of hurting you. It´s not fair,” I repeated.  
“Hey,” Ra said, looking as guilty and ill at ease as I had ever seen him. “I didn’t mean to offend you in there. Hod is like this sometimes. He can be harsh, but he is mostly harmless.”  
I didn’t meet his eyes but just continued with my business, going to and fro getting food and water and oats for our faithful steeds, all the while carefully navigating around Ra without so much as once touching him. “You didn’t. I am not offended. We talked this through, didn’t we? This is what it is gonna feel like, so I´d best start to get used to it.”  
Ra´s voice caught in his throat and I saw he longed to reach out his arm to touch me but dared not. “Tabu,” he said very quietly. “I am sorry, I really am. I know this is asking too much of you. I should not let them influence me that extensively. I know that. But still, I don’t think telling them about us would make things better. If anything, it would make matters worse. Much worse.”  
I finally stopped what I was doing and met his eyes for the first time in the whole conversation. He stopped dead immediately and looked at me with the expression of a wounded hound who knew he had disappointed. I bit back the urge to take him into my arms and took up my whole courage and will to muster a gentle smile. “I am not mad at you, Ra.”  
“What?”, he looked at me as if I was insane. “Why the hell not?”  
“No, I am not mad at you,” I shook my head. “I am mad at the world. I don’t understand what´s the big deal. I am mad at everyone out there for interfering and not just leaving us to our business. After all, this is absolutely no one´s business, except ours. Who says that what we do is more unnatural than everything else that goes on in this insane world. Just think of all these pre-arranged marriages where they don’t even know each other before they are thrown into bed together on their wedding nights. Hell, some of these are even still innocent little children. At least, we genuinely and wholeheartedly love each other. But I am not mad at you. I couldn’t. You´re just doing what you think is right. It´s not your fault that people like Hod exist. It´s not your fault that the whole world is so disturbingly simple-minded.” He smiled at me then, his open and captivating smile that seemed to encompass his entire face and had me melting away. My faithful steed tugged at me from behind and I shoved the bucket with the oats I had been holding in my hands for minutes now between her and Henna, which they quickly indulged in without taking any further notice of their masters talking across their backs.  
“It´s all so frustrating,” said Ra and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I would be another person if I knew people would support me, if people would accept. But trust me, they wouldn’t. And not because they are not all lovely and kind-hearted persons here, but because this world is cruel and hard. They were brought up like this, all of them, and there is just no way to make them rethink their adamant belief in good and evil.” He sighed.  
“There is a way,” I said. “But it is not going to be easy. Change never is.”  
“One alone is never able to change anything,” said Ra, shaking his head. “It´s too hard, too much. The world too big.” Against his every instinct he had come close to me after all and stood right on the other side of Henna´s bent neck, close enough that I would have been able to reach out and kiss him. His arm found mine and he quickly and affectionately brushed across. “But no matter what the world may think, I still love you, and always will,” he said.  
“I know,” I inclined my head to indicate the space behind him. “Hod is watching.”  
That made Ra turn and straighten up, retreating from me before he turned around and quickly slumped off into the general direction of the mill where he was expected to help Hod with the afternoon´s business, leaving me without another word to watch his beautiful backside retreat with a sad feeling growing in my stomach. Would it ever end? The shame? The hiding? The lies? Would there ever be a time in the future where we could just live our lives as unperturbed and unbothered as we deserved? Could there be? This world was so dark and cruel sometimes, yet, I knew there was also goodness and beauty to be found if only you cared to look hard enough. And as long as there was the slightest spark, the smallest chance for a change, it was enough to keep going, to cling to the hope of a better future.  
Completely lost in thought, I stumbled unpreparedly as Henna started to nibble at my shoulder blades. I gently slapped her head away and discerned the source of her discomfort immediately. They had emptied the bucket and were desperate for more. I softly tickled her ears, stroked her long neck and, looking deep into her big eyes, I whispered to her softly: “There is no more for you today, big girl. You already got what you need, there will be no more treats until tomorrow, sweetheart. No point in begging.” She nickered softly as if in direct answer to this refusal and shook her head petulantly. A derisive snort behind me made me turn to see Hod standing on the other side of the wicker fence. I wondered why he was even still there, he was supposed to work the mill until the break of dark, just as he did every day. Ra had gone to help him with Frodnar, leaving Gerdur to tend the house and me to see to our faithful steeds. But there he stood, moustaches drooping, and regarded me with disdain.  
“What?”, I asked when he didn’t say anything. Maybe a bit aggressively, maybe even a wee bit unfriendly, but I truly didn’t care anymore. Right now, it should have been obvious to both of us that the two of us would never become close friends anyways. “Did I do anything wrong, or what?”  
He shook his head again and looked down his nose at me. “Well, I should have expected this. People who talk to animals all have it coming sooner or later. In all frankness, though, I have to tell you, this nag does no more understand you than my chicken can understand me. You needn’t bother.”  
“Thank you for this wise counsel,” I said and executed a mock bow. “Whatever would I do without your neigh boundless wisdom?” Turning back to Henna and taking her holster to lead her away, I continued. “Don’t listen to the mean old man, sweetheart, I love you all the same.”  
Hod had heard – as had been my intent – and he was far from pleased. “Hey, elf,” he demanded sharply. “I need to talk to you.”  
I turned again slowly, letting my own displeasure and disdain show clearly on my face. “I have a name, you know. Also, I am in no mood to be insulted. Go pester someone else.” I let Henna go finally and she trotted away quickly across the fenced lawn, to join my own mare which was already happily munching away at a bundle of straw Gerdur had just put out for the family´s ox. Soon, all three of them were clustered around the heap of dried grass and didn’t notice what was going on around them any more. I crossed my arms and returned Hod´s hostile glance. After a long time of likewise staring in utter immobility I finally rolled my eyes and asked: “All right, what do you want? Am I doing anything else wrong? Do you maybe wanna tell me how to braid my hair or how to wear my weapons? Is there some more of your neigh boundless wisdom in that tiny little brain of yours you kindly wanna share with me again?”  
Hod pursed his lips. “You are screwing my sister´s brother, aren’t you?”  
For a second, I was actually convinced I must have misheard, my brain playing a stupid game I was not entirely on top of yet. I felt my eyes widen in an expression of horror as he didn’t budge and just continued to glower at me and I realized belatedly that he must have actually meant it. “Excuse me?”  
“You heard me well enough with these big, ugly ears of yours. Now I demand an answer.”  
I took a deep breath, prepared to let the insult pass. “I have no idea whatsoever how our love life could possibly be any of your business.”  
Hod grumbled. “So it´s true, isn´t it? I knew it. I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with that boy.”  
“There´s nothing wrong with him,” I hissed, suddenly not entirely calm any more.  
“So, you admit to sinning with him? You realize that what you have done is the biggest of crimes in all the world. The Emperor will have both of you burned. This will be the end for the likes of you.”  
“Is that a threat?”  
“No, it´s a fact. And I wouldn’t care about any of it, if not my wife would so incomprehensively love Ralof so much. I don’t know what she would do if anything should happen to –“  
“Nothing will happen to him, okay? This is none of your business, none at all, all right? So just fuck off and leave us to ours.”  
“But it is. It is very much my business indeed,” argued Hod and having sounded merely disgusted before, now he was getting really angry as well. “I have to put up with you. I have to put up with him. He´s a spoiled lad and would have needed a proper father to show him the ropes in his youth. Now, it seems, it is too late to save him and the harm is done. But still, I´ll have to put up with Gerdur and what she has to go through if Ralof decided to share his life with a- a... an elf like you.” He had certainly wanted to say something else than that, but something probably told him that my patience would not last that long, if he continued to treat me like the least of lesser leaches any longer. After all, even he had to be aware that if it came to a fight or even a hand to hand combat, his chances against me coincided against zero. He had the mass and the weight of an ox and someone who worked that hard every day had weathered and strong arms, but I was a born fighter, nimble as I was stealthy and although compared to him and Ralof I certainly didn’t look it, I was strong enough to take on many an assailant all on my own. He seemed to instinctively sense that, even though of course he didn’t want it to be true, but he was too intelligent and cautious to openly try me.  
“I am not speaking for Ralof here,” I spat through clenched teeth. “But just because I am not particularly interested in woman generally, doesn’t mean you have to fear for the well-being of your beloved family. I am just a man like you and everyone else out there. Just because I don’t have a wife doesn’t make me any more dangerous than any other man. I will not make no bones about my sexuality, just so you know, least of all as a favour to you. As long as I am here, you´ll just have to put up with it. But that doesn’t mean that you can treat me like scum, you hear me? It doesn’t matter what anyone of us does in his private time, what any of us prefers. I have fought many a fight with Ralof and so far, I haven’t seen that anything is wrong with him in any way. He is nothing if not righteous and I like him very much. He´s a better man than you are, so I won´t have you picking on him time and again, you got me?” At least, I could leave him in the dark and still not lie openly. Because, no matter what I may or may not have said, every single word of this had been true to the best of my beliefs. Still, I had neither dismissed nor corroborated his assumptions.  
“You are in no position to tell me how to do anything, okay? If I want your advice or anything else, I´ll come ask for it, elf, no sooner will I listen to you!”  
I let a minute or two of reciprocated distrustful staring pass, then forced myself to subtly smile at him. “Oh, now I get it,” I said in wonder, as if realizing just now the true scope of our calamity. “I know what your problem is…”  
“You do?”, he asked, almost incredulous, as if he would never have guessed I would actually get it. I couldn’t help now but press on, even though I knew it could not end well for me.  
“But of course I do,” I said as gently as I could muster. “And I see now that it must be so hard for you. Especially with a wife and a little boy like Frodnar.” He nodded slightly, but didn’t say anything else. His eyes grew bigger, as if I was really voicing his innermost thoughts. He may like my supposed deference now, but he would sure as hell not like where this conversation was going. “And usually I don’t do this kind of thing, but we can sure arrange something and at long last, we´ll surely be able to work something out. After all, this probably is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you as I very probably won´t ever return to this lovely little town of yours ever again.”  
Hod blinked. “Wait, what? What on earth are you talking about?”  
“Well, as you seem to be so interested in how and especially whom I spend my nights with, I figured you must be jealous.” I laid a hand on his arm and he was seemingly too stunned by my following words that he forgot to shrink back and just stared at me with building dread. “But it´s okay, honey,” I purred, winking at him quite wolfishly, “I´ve never thought of sleeping with someone like you before, but if it truly made you feel better and if you´d be more moderate tempered after I took care of you, I´d gladly sacrifice my pride and we´ll have some fun together. After all, I can just close my eyes and pretend it´s someone handsome and sexy, right?” I allowed a small and pretty spiteful little smile to spread across my face, though in truth I did not really feel like laughing at all. Just a second later, I was overly compensated tenfold for this insult, getting the satisfaction that it had indeed been worth all of it as Hod finally recoiled disgustedly and snapped.  
“What are you talking about? I would never… ever… not with… you!” Hod was so thrown off track that he didn’t even seem to find the right words. He bounded back, safely out of my reach, although I probably don’t have to reassure you that I wouldn’t touch this guy even if he were the last man on earth. “I don’t like you, elf,” he hissed at last.  
“Yeah… I figured as much,” I answered suavely. “But if it calms you, let me assure you, that I am also not a particularly big fan of yours neither.”  
Hod sneered and veered to head back to his mill and his daily job, that I had hopefully managed to spoil pretty thoroughly for him. I grinned and waved at his back as close to happy as I would probably get these next few days. If it was that easy to get rid of him, I would be able to manage after all. He turned around again, just before passing out of my sight and yelled: “This is NOT OVER YET!”  
“I´ll take your word on it,” I replied. “Just come visit me tonight, if you have secret desires. We´ll find a way, sweetheart!”  
“You disgust me.” I shrugged and watched him leave, satisfied at last, that I had finally gotten rid of him so comparatively easy. Yes, I had said certain things I was not exactly proud of, but if it helped getting Hod´s mind off Ralof and the unspeakable things he would say to him if he should ever get a whiff of our relationship, it was worth the price I had to pay. Hod hadn’t liked me from the start and I tried to make myself believe that it did not only have to do with my sexuality. After all, he could not have known already, the moment he sat down for lunch. I was not that obvious. At least, that´s what I was trying to tell myself. But for now, I had given him enough to think about and even more to not think about and some further reasons to hate me even more than he did before, so I felt rather safe and secure about him not thinking about Ra and his love life for a change and that he would consequently concentrate all his spite on me. Which was okay for me, as long as he left his brother-in-law in peace and if only it would protect Ra from his volatile ignorance. I was prepared to take on the fight. I only hoped that he would not come to the inn that night, because I don’t think I could take seeing him naked. Not now, not ever. Not even if he were the last man on the entirety of Tamriel. There were some things no man deserved to be put through.  
∞∞∞  
Getting a room at the local inn was easier than expected. Apparently, Riverwood was not a particularly frequented transit village, not like Ivarstead across the mountain range or Dragonsbridge between Solitude and Markath. Only half of the small rooms were lent and the innkeeper seemed to be pleased by yet another customer to keep paying his rent. I could even choose between the unoccupied chambers freely and settled for a cosy small room with a single bed, a wooden chest at the end of said bed and a single chair as its only furniture. The small window overlooked the stand of tall pines behind the house and offered a view of Hod and Gerdur´s place in the distance. The sky was dark already, but I could see the lights inside the house through the blurry windowpanes and knew, somewhere behind these walls and the thick wooden door, Ralof was just now sitting around the dinner table, happily reunited with his family and probably not even thinking about me – alone out here. Not as much as I couldn’t help but think of him, anyways. I had felt so terrible after my unfortunate encounter with Hod this afternoon that I had decided to skip dinner with the family tonight and go prowl the villages´ surroundings instead, alone with the stirring thoughts in my head and the comfortable feeling of my bow in my hand. I wasn’t hungry anyways. I had returned to Riverwood shortly after dark and decided to settle down early and through lack of anything else to do, to just go to sleep as soon as possible. There wasn’t much to be done in this quiet little settlement on the edge of civilization and I didn’t feel like sitting out there in the common room, mingling with the high-nosed and red-cheeked citizens, watching them drink while I wallowed in self-pity miserably and tried to quench my overwhelming longing for peace and quietness and – most of all – Ra in drinks and ale, which for me never did the trick. I don’t know if it was a personal thing or if elves were just generally not fit for drinking more than their fill, but trying to get drunk never seemed to work, no matter how much I struggled and all I was able to gain from things like ale, wine or certain other, stronger liquids, was a racking headache the next morning and painful difficulties to think for at least a few days afterwards, until all the alcohol had left my system, so I had given up trying a long time ago. There was nothing to quench or blot out my misery or unhappiness and I was absolutely not up for the kind of boasting show-off and self-assured, meaningless babble these roadside inns seemed to be built around. In every other tavern, no matter where – and may the village be ever so small – there seemed to be at least one old wretch who had wrestled with Dragons, fought Deathlords and killed one of the Daedric princes themselves, probably even with his bare hands and now – thirty to forty years after his or her primetime – they still would just not shut up about their heroism. Most of the times I had the impression that I was the only one in the entire town who had ever actually seen a real dragon, let alone fought against one and survived. And getting pissed off by that kind of talk even on nights where I was in a rather good mood, I just couldn’t take any of it tonight. I even sent away the cloyingly friendly tavern´s maid, who knocked on my door shortly after I had returned from my ramblings and locked myself in, attempting to bring me dinner and wish me a good night. I would sure as hell not have a particularly good night, and besides, I knew exactly what she was trying to get at. In that respect, though, she was definitely at the wrong door in my case and I quickly shooed her away, telling her to leave me alone and not to bother me again tonight.  
I stripped to tunic and loincloth and slipped underneath the warm fur covers without bothering to light a lamp. My bow and arrows deposited safely just in reach behind my head and with the small glass dagger, that I wore concealed in my sleeves at all times, underneath the pillow, I finally lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. It was made of plain wooden boards with many a crack in it, through which I could see parts of the attic above. I listened to the increasingly clamouring voices of the tavern´s denizens and all other guests who came for a drink either with or without their wives, all of which attuned into the cacophony of voices and shouts, yells and cries, banter and jesting, prowess and show-off. I squeezed my eyes shut when I noticed the moon directly falling onto my narrow bed through one of the slightly cracked window panes from beyond, willing sleep to come, trying not to think about anything, trying to put my troubled mind to rest, and epically failing in banning all gloomy and unhappy thoughts of unease and strife.  
When I closed my eyes, I tried to reimagine the most beautiful moments in my life, most of which had indeed happened these past two years, where I had been as happy as I had never been able to be before. I saw Ra again for the very first time, back in bounds on the imperial wagons, on our way to our execution in Helgen. Even back then I had already marvelled over the brightness of his eyes. I saw him smiling up at me at so many of the successful campaigns we had led conjoined with Ra´s most trusted Stormcloaks, back before we had been together. And then came my most favourite moment of all. It had been a spring night just like this one, brisk and clear but all the same time beautiful and pristine. It had been the night we had kissed for the first time and all at once everything had changed for me. It had been like waking from an endless dream back then, had seemed like for the first time in my entire life I had truly known what kissing meant, what feelings it could unleash inside of me. Ralof had been confused about his own feelings and even slightly alarmed that I had responded afterwards. He had been gentle and warm and I still felt his cool lips one mine today, could still exactly recreate that perfect moment when our tongues had met, the two of us sitting all alone up on this rocky outcrop, overlooking the camp where we had successfully intercepted an imperial silver convoy and where Ra´s men had slept peacefully beneath, both of us gently and tenderly experiencing reciprocated affection for the first time ever. I elongated that perfect memory in my mind and by the time I reached the evening and the night of our first date, I was gently enveloped in sleep, dreaming of nothing in particularly, body and mind both in that state of rest and ease at long last, a state where I did not think about anything anymore, where there was just blessed silence and empty vacuum around me.  
I woke with a start and was immediately sitting bolt upright in bed, dagger in hand, ready for a critical strike. But there was nothing. I scanned the shadows of the tiny room in the abundant moonlight but couldn’t detect what had so violently made me wake up. The voices outside were still clamouring vociferously, albeit all of them sounded blurry and drunk by now, enough, for me to absolutely be sure about having slept at least two to three hours at a stretch. I was just about to lie down again, when the persistent knock at the door sounded again and I realized that this had to be what had pulled me out of my dream and back into the harsh and painfully real world in the first place. I cursed, and heaved my sparely clothed body out of bed, hauled my tired bones and muscles off the soft and pillowy mattress and strained to make it to the door without yawning to turn the key in the lock.  
“What?”, I hissed as I pulled it open with a jerk. “I told you not to –“ I stopped as soon as I noticed that there was nothing and no one standing in front of it. Had I just imagined the insistent rapping? Was I going crazy at long last? I leaned out subtly but still, there was no one to be seen, at least no one that seemed to be particularly interested in me or in entering my room. I scowled. The exuberant revellers still were in the very middle of it, but none of them – except the tiny little damsel from before – even cared to chance a look into my general direction, but seemed to be solely engrossed in merry talk and happy drunkenness.  
I shook my head sleepily and was just about to retreat to bed again when I felt an invisible weight pushing me back into the room insistently and stifling my yelp of startled surprise by placing what felt like an incredibly big and strong hand over my mouth, muffling my attempts to break loose and steering me back into the room while I struggled feebly against the still utterly invisible assailant and tried to punch something vital or at least hit any point of his or her body where it would really and thoroughly hurt. I thought of my dagger beneath the pillow just out of my reach and tried to dive for it, but the invisible force was wise to the move and quickly arrested my arm while arching my back so that I was forced to lean in close to whoever tried to murder me here, as the person kicked the door shut softly with an equally invisible boot. In the heat of the battle I didn’t care to contemplate about what this was supposed to be, but still, I couldn’t help but think what if Hod had gone to these lengths and hired someone to get rid of me for good. I grunted as I tried to twist around the strong arms that arrested me and attempted to push past the sheer bulk of muscles that encased me in a tight vice, too tight almost to move, but it was impossible, the arms kept me in place just where they wanted me, there was absolutely no leverage to be found and the invisible assailant arrested my body thoroughly, without the merest possibility to do anything about it.  
As soon as the door flew into its lock I felt the assailant let up and I heard a faint and quiet voice whisper into my ear. “Psssst,” a hoarse voice seemed to implore as I slowly felt the weight of restraint ease around my chest and I drew a quick breath. Throwing my head backwards with all the strength I could muster right now, I soon felt it collide with shattering impact, leaving me to stagger forwards dazed and dizzy, seeing stars and sparks flash across my vision, but at least I was entirely free suddenly and thus I wheeled around immediately and kicked in a big and powerfully arching swing. I felt my foot collide with something bony and hard. My unexpected attacker grunted and let out a muffled noise of indignation and pain as I heard, but didn’t see, the bulk of a man fall to the ground. It would have been easy for me to quickly end it there and then, what with the reverberations in the air and the painful moaning of the fallen offender, even without seeing him, but I jumped back dumbstruck as I recognized the man´s voice. Suddenly, I saw an empty glass bottle falling to the floor – supposedly the antidote to the invisibility philtre this man had disguised himself with – and drew in a shocked breath as the enchantment faded away and my nightly visitor manifested itself on the floor, at the foot of my bed.  
“Ra?”, I gasped in surprise and threw myself down on the floor next to him immediately, kneeling beside him. I was so taken aback and utterly puzzled, I didn’t remember to keep my voice low enough and he quickly motioned for me to keep silent. I dropped my voice to an excited whisper and crouched low so that he could make out my words from here he was writing on the floor in pain, spreading his elbows slowly. “Divines, are you okay? If I´d known it was you, I wouldn’t have put up a fight.”  
“Ouch,” he said by way of answer and moaned some more. There was blood all over his face and his nose was not exactly in the same position I remembered it should be in. I had apparently broken it with my assault and though I was awfully sorry about hurting him, he should have known better than to creep up on me like that. I gently cupped his chin with my fingertips and quickly fetched a small glass vial with a potion of potent healing from one of the many pockets inside of my armour to stop the flow of bright blood welling from his broken nose, that streamed freely down his chin and onto my hands. He didn’t flinch as the rosé liquid touched the sensitive skin in and around his broken nose, even though I could positively relay from experience that this kind of alchemy was really quite unpleasant to behold. But he just regarded me silently and with these big, shiny eyes as the potion knit the skin and bones back together in only a few blinks of an eye, returning his face to as good as new. “What in Oblivion are you doing here?”, I whispered, not wanting to let go of him just yet.  
“I wanted to see you,” he replied with the simplicity so typical for him, as soon as he was back to normal and could talk without sounding like a sorry and nasal version of himself. I fetched the jug of water and a cotton cloth from the little bedside table and dabbed at the blood on his face. His eyes sparkled as he lifted himself up into a sitting position, under a fair bit of serious moaning. “Though I didn’t expect you to try to kill me immediately. I was not prepared for quite such a violent measure of opposition.”  
“Gods, I am sorry, Ra,” I apologized and pulled him up by the hands. “But I am neither used to, nor was I prepared for mid-nightly visitors who are also invisible and try to intrude into my chambers unannounced and quite as suddenly as that.” I shook my head and helped him sit on the little bed. He was massaging his kidneys and his breath did not sound utterly at ease. Unaware of the repercussions of my kick, by not being able to see where or what exactly my heel had connected with, I had apparently hit just the right spot by mere chance. Ra closed his eyes and continued to hold his side.  
“Ouch,” he groaned again. “That was pretty intense. But at least, your reflexes work just fine.”  
I went over to the little door and opened it just the smallest of cracks. Not enough for people to be able to see into the dark of my room, but wide enough for me to chance a look out into the crowded common room. I wanted to check if anyone had noticed anything untoward going on, or had actually witnessed my struggle with an invisible offender. But I didn’t need to be worried, as absolutely no one was even looking in my direction, even the slender maid from before was gone off to somewhere – she had probably eventually succeeded in finding another tenant who had at long last invited her into his room – and everyone else was much too drunk by far to notice anything untoward going on anywhere. I quietly closed the door again and turned the key in its lock.  
“At least now I know where I stand with you now,” Ralof was just saying, trying to sound light, but I could hear that he still had to be in quite some pain. “I won´t try any of it ever again.”  
I nodded. “Though it was a pretty clever way to sneak in here unseen. But you could have warned me before you threw yourself at me. What are you even doing here?”, I asked again, still remaining standing in front of him. “I don’t think your family will be too pleased by you sneaking out to see your secret lover in the middle of the night. I don’t think Hod will be thrilled by this little enterprise.” Ra opened his eyes and managed at least a faint little smile.  
“He´ll never know I am gone,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides, no matter how he may behave, he is not my father. I wanted to be with you. That´s all the reason I needed to slip out of the house. And on top of that, I could never sleep there anyways; not with Hod snoring like a bear, making the entire town shake in its foundations and Frodnar tossing restlessly besides the fireplace for hours on end. So, I decided to come see you.” He looked around the room consciously for the first time and seemed to notice only now that all was bathed in darkness, and that I had probably been in bed already. “I just wouldn’t have expected you to be asleep yet.”  
“Well…” I said and drifted off, uncertain what to say, unsure how to explain the deep longing I had felt for him and how I had had to think of him incessantly. I moved to sit beside him eventually and without saying anything else, I shimmied close and rested my head on his shoulder comfortably. I let out a prolonged breath as he wound his arms around my scarcely clothed torso and I felt the warmth of his body seep through the soft cotton and the thin material of my shirt and, repressing a shiver, I leaned in closer to my one true love and relished the feeling of having him with me at long last. It felt as if the Gods had listened to my prayers of proximity and granted me my innermost wish.  
“Mind if I stay here with you tonight?”, asked Ra and looked up at me expectantly through long and wispy strands of his golden hair.  
“Not at all,” I said and as I shook my head slowly, barely able to grasp my luck, he started to undress, folding his fine clothes meticulously and placing them beside my armour on the chest and the only stool in the room before slipping under the covers next to me. It was strait but not too cramped and the small bed allowed just for both of our bodies to lay intertwined and very close to each other on the soft down mattress. The furry blanket reached just high enough to cover us up to our shoulders, enveloping the two of us in our very own cocoon of ease and comfort, creating our very own bubble of satisfied contentment. We were settled down comfortably very soon and I nestled in close, resting my head in the pit of his arm. I felt his chin against the back of my head and we were holding hands across our chests. The fingers of his other hand stroked my bare shoulder and traced entwined patterns on my arm. I closed my eyes and let out the breath I hadn’t dared to exhale all day long. It was a very, very long breath. He breathed a soft and barely perceptible kiss on my forehead.  
“Divines,” he sighed and I relished the feeling of closeness and comfort he conveyed. “I wanted to do that all day long.”  
“I am glad you came,” I whispered.  
“Me too,” he answered and I felt him starting to grin, although I couldn’t see his face. “Though I wouldn’t have expected to return half a cripple tomorrow.”  
I stroked his wide and smoothly muscled chest with the tips of my bare hand and at long last all my body seemed to be able to really relax and immediately I felt a comfortable tiredness and pleasurable exhaustion creep up on me and felt positive, that in Ra´s strong and protective arms I would be able to sleep so much better, so much longer, so much deeper than I would have been able to on my own. “I didn’t want to mutilate you, honey,” I answered gently. “But a man has to be able to protect himself, am I right or am I right?”  
“True enough,” agreed Ra and I noticed his voice was coloured by sleepy anticipation as well. “And I would never want to change anything about you anyways.”  
After a lengthy and comfortable pause, I turned to face him and said: “Darling, I have to make a confession.”  
“Hmm…?”  
“Just as a heads-up, I feel I need to tell you that I may have accidentally and probably unnecessarily aggravated your brother-in-law.”  
Ra arched a finely curved eyebrow. “Hod? You mean even more than usual? Is that even possible?”, he asked sleepily. “What did you do, Tabu?”  
I turned in his embrace again, until my face rested against his wide chest cosily, took in his scent and found the centre of my mind at long last. Then, I quietly told him about the misfortunate encounter we had had earlier – though I did not tell him the exact reason why Hod was mad at me now, deliberately leaving out all the ugly and insulting details we had talked about in special. No need to make Ra even more miserable than he was doubtless feeling already. Also, I did not want him to know that someone like Hod had seen right through me and knew everything. Ra did not deserve that. When I was finished, Ra didn’t say anything for a very long time, so that I was briefly convinced that he must have finally fallen asleep after all. Maybe it was even for the better like this, I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him in the first place. Even without my burdens, Ra had much too much on his mind already. I didn’t want to unload my own problems onto him, to make him even more stressed out. But then, when I just felt myself drifting off as well, he heaved a sigh and I felt the deep breath expanding his ribcage.  
“You know what,” he said softly. “I am so fed up with everything, I will not put up with it for another single day. Tomorrow, after Frodnar´s party, I am gonna tell them. We are gonna tell them. If you still want to, that is. I am sure that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, so my family will just have to get to terms with it. I don’t want us having to put up an act every time we come here. If they truly love me, they should be okay with it… right?” He tried so hard to sound sure of himself, but still, I knew there was a pretty big part of him, screaming its reluctance and doubt throughout his entire being. He suffered, and I could barely take it.  
“Ra, if you decide to do it, I won´t leave your side. I am still convinced that it will help all of your family, you most of all. It is important to speak these things out loud, lest they eat you from inside. And what we are doing is nothing bad, no matter what people are saying. It´s just not… common. But you don’t have to do this. Not only for me. I love you, no matter how. And if it is what you want, I´ll love you in secret for the rest of our lives. For being with you, it´s totally worth it. I´ll be okay.”  
“No,” he said and brought his face in close, so that our foreheads touched. “I mean, I know, but I am doing this as much for you as for anyone else. It´s because you were right.”  
I smiled wanly. “I know, darling. I usually am. But that doesn’t mean that I want you to do anything you might later regret.”  
“It´s just… what you said yesterday rang true. Things indeed have to change. It´s time to stop the sneaking around, the endless hiding and running. I am so sick of all of it. You have always only been there for me and have supported me, no matter what. And you don’t deserve this. Neither of us does. I´ll tell Hod and Gerdur about us tomorrow and they´d better cope with it, cause I sure as hell would choose you over them and they´ll have to learn to live with that from now on.”  
“Oh Ra...,” I whispered and he pulled me close. I buried my head in his hair and tried not to think about what would happen if his family didn’t react the way I was hoping they would react. What if they weren’t okay with it? What if they would truly cast him out, what if they wouldn’t want to speak to him any more? It surely was no isolated incident. I knew how important the support of one´s family was or how truly alone and hated by just about everyone you would feel if they didn’t. After all, I had once been in exactly that same position myself. But then, Ra was not alone. If all else should fail, we still had each other and even if his family casted him out and never wanted to see him again, at least he would have spoken up for himself at long last and stood to his true feelings. And then we´d never have to return here, could turn our backs on the past and could still live our lives close together, whatever may come. Cause one thing was for sure: I never planned to leave him ever again, no matter what would happen tomorrow or any time from now. I loved him so much, that parting from him would feel like cutting off the most crucial parts of me. With that thought in mind, a comfortably warm blanket over me and – most importantly – Ralof close by my side, I finally succumbed to the insistent pull of tiredness and fell asleep.  
∞∞∞  
The men wanted to go out to hunt for game for tonight´s celebration. Everybody was up and about very early and Ra had already disappeared from my side when I woke the next morning. Although the side of the bed where he had lain next to me was still warm, so I guessed he could not have been gone too long. I even imagined there was still a lingering trace of his special scent floating through the otherwise completely still air. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, groaning. I was not looking forward to this day particularly much, even less than I was looking forward to the day tomorrow, now, that Hod had made it clear that he did indeed not like me at all – which I didn’t care about in the least – but also that he did not approve of us – which frankly, I couldn’t care less about as well, but as Hod was important to Ra and thus also Hod´s appreciation mattered to my partner, I couldn’t just ignore Gerdur´s husband forever. For a brief period, I contemplated to either just stay in bed all day long and pretend to be dead – that one would certainly lift Hod´s spirits considerably – or just sneak out through the small window overhead my bed and disappear into the wild. But that would not only disappoint Ra immensely, it would probably also mortally offend him. And I just could not let that happen. So, I got up with a feeling of ill portent and started to get ready for the day. Which was far from easy if you are as demotivated as I was at that very moment.  
I almost fell over a stray dog slinking around the porch of the inn as I stepped out of the door, which helped perfectly to deteriorate my foul mood even further, so that I was ready to kill someone by the time one of the many kids of small Riverwood bumped into me in a wild chase with some of her fellows across Hod and Gerdur´s lawn. I grit my teeth – willing myself not to shout at them – and decisively and maybe a little harder than the poor door deserved, I knocked. Gerdur opened and welcomed me in with a warm and inviting smile, belying and decisively ignoring everything that had happened the day before.  
“A very good morning to you,” she announced brightly as I crossed the threshold. “I do hope you did sleep well and had a restorative night?”  
“It was indeed unexpectedly pleasant,” I answered tight-lipped and let her lead me to the fireplace, where she was already pre-cooking tons of stuff I didn’t even have a name for, in order to prepare for the birthday-party this afternoon. I had come to understand that it would be only a small event, family only, but apparently even Ra had been misinformed as to the true extent of the celebration. After all, ten years apparently seemed to be a special age in the Northern culture and had to be honoured by more than just a birthday cake, tons of gifts and a hearty slap on the back.  
Inside the house, it seemed, all hell had broken loose. There were things and all conceivably stuff lying around everywhere, every available surface across the rest of the apartment was filled with plates, cookery, pots and every other kitchen utensil I had ever seen and would probably ever see in my entire life. It was so much, neither of the house´s inhabitants could find a seat anywhere and therefore everybody remained standing. Ralof was momentarily not visible – which helped darken my mood even further if that was even possible – and Hod was standing by the fireplace opposite me, getting dressed, which revealed very much of what I had actually never wanted to see in my life. How Gerdur could endure him was a real and persistent miracle to me. Adding to everything else, Frodnar hopped around the room and shrieked at least two octaves too high for my sensible ears while he bounded over pots of pre-cooked birthday-dinner and stacks of pottery, plates and everything else the family would need to host a meal for loads of people. Amidst all that moved Gerdur with a precision and utter calm that belied all the chaos that was unfolding around her, moving to and fro with determination und deliberate cause, doing just what she had to do, just what she wanted to do, without getting discomposed by anything or anyone. Which reminded me so much of her brother that it sent a stab of longing pain through my stomach.  
When Hod had finished dressing – all Gods be thanked – he turned and greeted me with an aggressive glare and barely more than a dismissive grunt, before he went to arrange a stack of wrapped bundles which had to be Frodnar´s birthday presents. Amidst those were several square ones that had to be books or some such, then there were a few oblong ones that were doubtless some toys or others and lastly there was a long and thin bundle, split in two halves, with a fine and almost imperceptible bow to it, that immediately awakened my interest. It seemed to resemble something I knew very well and I was curious if it contained indeed what I was immediately thinking about. Hod moving the presents got Frodnar´s attention, who increased the gigantic raucous clamour he was producing with that small mouth of his. My ears sang and my head began to throb. I very much wished myself to any other place in this world at this moment, no matter where, no matter with whom, as long as I could just escape this house. I´d even face an entire legion of Frostbite Spiders in a dark and dank cave all by myself without any light and weapon whatsoever, than be imprisoned in this oppressing cage with this awful family.  
“Frodnar! Ease up there. You´ll scare all the game,” boomed Ra´s voice suddenly and Frodnar shut up immediately. I opened my eyes again thankfully and saw Ralof regarding me considerately worried. Frodnar hopped up into his arms and Ra was distracted momentarily as he whirled his nephew around. Soon, the noise eased into an almost bearable level of animated chatter and I deemed it sufficiently safe to move from the immediate vicinity of the only escape route – the front door – to sit on maybe the only still available surface in the entire room, a strip of bench close to the fire. Ra and Hod were engrossed in a serious discussion about today´s hunt and were arguing about the best number of hunters, the preferable weaponry, the best game and in general about whatever else one could disagree about when going on a hunt. I stared into the fire gloomily and tried not to let my displeasure show too much on my face. How I longed to go out there and leave all of this behind. Just me and Ra out in the woods, prowling, hunting, killing together in near perfect sync like we had in that Draugr nest. Just the two of us and we wouldn’t have to worry about what anyone else thought, about Ra´s family, about the judgy people of this town. It would be too good to be true.  
“We should ask Haithabu if we can´t agree. After all, he´s an archer and he´s the one best suited for this kind of talk. Right?” Both Ra and Hod turned to me and I realized belatedly that I had no idea what my beloved was talking about.  
“All right, what do you say, elf?”, barked Hod and I sensed Ra wanted to react to this insult, but a sharp glance from me had him merely shrugging his shoulders and then he cast his eyes down.  
“The elf hasn’t listened to your meaningless brabble, dear Hod, but regarding your hunting skills, instinctively, I´d definitely side with Ralof on this one.”  
It was silent for a lengthy amount of time, nobody dared to say a word. Nobody had probably ever spoken up to burly, arrogant, narrow-minded Hod in decades and both Ra and his sister held their breath. And it would sure have ended badly for me – but even worse for Hod, seeing that he was a simple miller and I was a professionally trained assassin and a successful soldier on top of that – would Frodnar not have started giggling wildly just that second. He laughed very hard by the time Gerdur and Ra joined him both shyly and immensely relieved and eventually even Hod´s lips quirked, but his forced smile never reached his eyes. Instead they spoke of hatred and of murder – if ever I would give him the opportunity to get away with it. Frodnar had unwittingly saved the situation and was eager to force the attention back to himself, back to his birthday and back to the reason why all of us were currently cramped together in this small house.  
“I wanna open the gifts now. Please, can I open them now. Why can´t I open them nowwwwww.” He started to plead and whine and my head pounded violently again. I needed all my strength and willpower to keep my hands from covering my ears.  
“Darling, you´ll have to wait till after the hunt,” Gerdur warded off her son easily and without the slightest irritation, and continued to stir calmly what was currently simmering in the pot over the fire. “As is our tradition, you´ll open your presents tonight, after the meal. We have done it that way every year and will continue to do so until you find a nice bride and move out. But for now, you´ll have to be patient and look forward to the hunt. Aren´t you excited for that, too?”  
“Yes, mama,” conceded Frodnar downcast, but he still regarded the heap of wrapped bundles with longing anticipation.  
“Although,” Ralof cut in slowly. “There is one gift you should unwrap before we go. It´s gonna be hardly any fun without it.”  
Frodnar brightened as Ra fished the oddly elongated object from the pile and handed it to his gloating nephew with a gentle and wistful smile on his lips. He moved to stand beside the fire to warm his hands and brushed by me so close that I held my breath. I could have reached out and taken his hand if I´d wanted to, but of course, I didn’t. When I let the breath out again slowly, I saw Ra´s hands work nervously by his side – as clear a sign as anything else of his own nervousness.  
Frodnar in the meanwhile had the time of his life as he unwrapped a brand-new, handmade and apparently also beautifully embellished, hand-carved wooden hunting bow. “It´s a bow!”, he exclaimed with burning eyes. “A hunting bow. I have always wanted to have one of these! Mama, Papa, look at that! It´s awesome!!!” He stood up and ran about the room, mimicking to draw and notch and shoot, spinning and whirling in wild ecstasy. Out of breath, he finally fell into Ra´s arms, who ruffled his hair affectionately. “Can I keep it?”  
“Of course you can keep it, buddy. I made it especially for you. It´s your birthday present. You can keep it and even take it on the hunt and kill your first grouse later today, if you can handle it. After all, you are old enough by now to be called a proper man.”  
Hod snorted at that, but didn’t say anything. Frodnar quickly came over to me and told me to inspect his newest conquest. It was fine and very intricately crafted and I could only guess as to how long it had taken Ra to create something that beautiful out of a simple slab of wood. I flashed my eyes over to him and saw how his cheeks glowed bright red and as he winked to his nephew, I saw how much Frodnar´s happiness meant to him, how much he loved and cherished this little, hyperactive child. Frodnar´s delight about this gift infected the entire household and soon the atmosphere was a lot more pleasant than it had been only minutes before. Hod and Frodnar continued to prepare all kind of stuff for their hunt and Gerdur went on to prepare everything concerning the big party everyone seemed to look forward to so much. Frankly, I could not exactly see what was so special about roasting a deer or fry a few chickens you had killed in a hunt, but I guess that was just me.  
At least, now Ra and I were able to glean a few moments in relative private and talk quietly. We stood too far apart to touch, even when my entire being screamed at me and wanted to be closer to him, ever closer, so close that nothing could ever part us ever again. But of course, this kind of thing could and never would happen in this house, Hod would see to that. So we faced each other across the table while we cleared the plates and stuff from breakfast and prepared our weapons for the big killing game.  
“So,” I said quietly, “this was your big surprise? The bow?” He nodded. “It´s so beautiful,” I continued, still amazed at what delicate handiwork his strong fingers could accomplish. “It must have taken ages to make it.”  
He nodded again. “I worked at it for almost six months. It sure gave me sore fingers at times, but seeing him as excited about it as that, it was worth every little splinter and cut I got in the process. It warms my heart to see him happy.”  
“You truly love him,” I observed.  
“Yes, I do,” he nodded and regarded Frodnar lovingly across the room, who had just knocked a high stack of luckily wooden plates from the table, the clattering probably even alarming the emperor in far and remote Cyrodiil, so loud did I deem the noise. I flinched despite of me. “If it wouldn’t be for him, everything would be different.” Ralof smiled as Frodnar continued to hop around, completely unperturbed by the chaos he was leaving in his wake as he brandished his new weapon forcefully to all sides. “But he is my everything. And I need to protect him by all means.”  
“That´s adorable. You´d be a great father.” I saw his features contort into a mask of pain briefly and I felt with him. After all, I knew exactly what he was thinking just now. I felt it myself. The life of an elf can be very long and lonely at best, and was much more so if you could not have a family. And no matter how natural or ordinary we may feel, despite everything, men like us could and never would be able to have children. Mostly, it didn’t bother me too much – after all, my life would have to change dramatically to adjust to a little one, it was just not suited to raise kids – but sometimes, in moments like this one, all of it just made me very, very sad. And though I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the noisy and more often than not nosy offspring of all the people around me, I still felt a silent and insistent longing tugging at the corners of my heart sometimes, feeling that something was missing, yearning for something I secretly knew I could never have. It was in moments like this one, that I truly felt the weight and responsibility of being your own man at its worst, which sometimes even made me want to be someone else entirely. Someone who wasn’t shunned and avoided because he was socially awkward and felt like he did not belong in this world with everyone else, someone who wasn’t hated and rejected by his own parents and entire family for being what he was, for being different from what they expected. Someone ordinary, someone normal – whatever that may entail. But, there was no way to change who I was, and I was also pretty certain that even if I did have the opportunity, I would not really want to change anything anyways. After all, right now I even liked my life pretty much in general – on most days anyways, with only very, very few exceptions– and even though Ra and I would never be able to have a big and growing family like I secretly yearned for, at least we had each other and were comfortable with growing old together. And I understood suddenly, why Ralof fretted over his nephew so much, why he loved him so intensely and wanted to protect him from all evil like it was his very own son. It was because he knew exactly as well as I did, that he in turn would never be able to father a son of his own and so, he clandestinely and silently tried to make up for it.  
Frodnar would be allowed to join the hunt for the very first time in his life and was much too excited to sit or stand still for more than single seconds at a stretch and instead he ran around the house ever more wildly, until it seemed to start to bother even calm and controlled Gerdur, who turned to her husband. “Hod, I think it´s time to leave. Before he breaks his back or starts killing anyone randomly or wreaks havoc in the yard. And that may not happen. I like these chicken, I need these chicken. And I don’t want Frodnar to be a hazard to us all, so please take him and go. The dinner will be ready when you get back, we´ll only have to roast whatever you shoot. Go, take your men and kill us something delicious.” Hod nodded, scooped up his son and weapons in his arms and kissed his loving wife goodbye. Then he turned and marched out the door.  
“It´s gonna be a lot of fun,” agreed Ra, “but surely no one will be able to contend with Haithabu, as he is the very best archer I know of, probably the best in all of Skyrim.” I felt my cheeks colour and was surprisingly touched by this sign from a man who was so humble and modest about everything. It meant the world to me.  
Gerdur spoke up before anyone could say anything else. “I was actually hoping Haithabu would maybe want to stay behind and help me with some… preparations?” She gave me a meaningful glance but I didn’t say anything, not sure what she expected from me here.  
“I can help you,” offered Ra immediately, moving to stand by his sister´s side. “Just tell me what you need done and I´ll do it before we leave. It won´t be a problem at all. If you need help, I can also stay behind with you.”  
Gerdur shook her head. “Thank you, but it´s no big deal, Ralof. You go with the boys and have fun. After all, Frodnar was so excited to see you, you should spend as much time with your nephew as possible. Your… friend and I will be just fine, right?” I just opened my mouth but she had already linked her arm with mine and was pulling me off towards the kitchen. I shot an increasingly desperate glance over my shoulder, back at Ra who regarded us thoughtfully but not as worriedly by far as my own expression must have been by this point. I didn’t know what Gerdur wanted from me, but the way she kept insisting, it could hardly be something good. But having seen his sister and the decisiveness with which she acted, there was nothing in the world he or anyone else could do about whatever she had gotten into her head and both of us would just have to comply with her wishes. She quickly shooed the men out of the house and we wished them a successful hunt. Then, as soon as the door fell shut behind them, she turned and tried to stare me down. She was almost successful.  
“Okay, how can I help you?”, I asked pragmatically, when I thought these unnerving eyes would bore into my skull at long last and come out at the back of my head, if I did not do something about it quickly. It felt intense and unsettlingly like staring into Ra´s irises and at long last I had to avert my gaze, afraid that she would see in my eyes what I felt for her brother, what I desperately tried to hide and what I could never, never ever show her or anyone else.  
She just continued to stare and didn’t move an inch. “Haithabu, we need to talk,” she stated finally, matter-of-factly.  
“We do?”, I inquired. I had the disconcerting feeling I knew what was coming next and though I was in no mood to apologize for anything, I grit my teeth and pressed out the next words to avoid a lengthy reproach from her side. “I am sorry if I have offended your husband earlier. I meant no disrespect.”  
She suddenly barked a laugh that made me jump and continued to chuckle to herself silently as she led me away to stand over the hearth and the simmering stew she had started to prepare therein. “Oh, that? No, you don’t have to apologize for that. Hod had it coming, with how he talked to you and all. It´s his own fault, really. About time someone other than myself tried to show him the ropes.” She regarded me with something bordering on real esteem and actual appraisal. I wondered where this conversation would lead to. “No, what I wanted to discuss with you is of a more… personal nature.”  
“Okay?”, I agreed, all at once wary again. I was not at all in the mood of sharing personal stories with someone I barely knew. Not even Ra knew all there was to know about me and mostly, this was a good thing. Good for him and good for me. But I could feel that Gerdur was different. She would probably not be as easily thwarted and wouldn’t let up quite as readily as Ra. Probably, she had found out about me already, just like her nosy and antagonizing husband. If they wanted to jibe and mock at me it was okay, I would grin and bear it, like I grinned and bore so many other things before. But I would not let neither Gerdur nor Hod say anything disrespectful about Ra or drag him through the mire. Family or not, my patience and endurance did not extend quite that far. “Fire away,” I said and sighed silently.  
“I want you to make my brother happy.” I was so completely taken aback by this odd request, that I was thrown off track momentarily and needed a second to think about an answer. I came up with nothing particularly imaginative, so „Wait, what?“ was all I had in store for her at that particular moment.  
She rolled her sparkling eyes, making an impatient noise at the back of her throat and crossed her arms defiantly. „It would help me immensely if you just stopped taking me for a fool and each of us laid his cards on the table openly.”  
“I don’t… Okay,” I said again, out of lack of anything else to say. “You go first.”  
She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment but then took a deep breath as if she were making a confession. She spoke in a low voice and very fast, as if she had dreaded this moment and wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. “I…,” she began, but then quickly averted her eyes to watch herself stir the stew. “I don’t really know how to say that, but…. I know about you and my brother. I knew about this… about Ralof and his preferences ever since he was a boy and I have been worried about him ever since.”  
I took a very, very deep breath, still hoping this was maybe a dream or that maybe she was not talking about what I increasingly feared she was talking about. I really did not want to discuss any of this with my lover´s sister. “What do you mean,” I asked reluctantly.  
“I mean, I know that you and Ralof are more than friends, that you…,” she drifted off with a meaningful but all the same shy glance but she didn’t have to finish her sentence. I knew exactly what she meant and my stomach contracted.  
“You… know?”, I echoed faintly. I was a little bit shocked and also quite uneasy; this had been what Ralof had so meticulously been trying to avoid and dreaded enough to start this huge fight over and apparently, I had given all of it away with just a few stupid actions, by not caring enough, by not loving Ra enough.  
Gerdur snorted and rolled her eyes artistically. “Oh come on, my brother is not as subtle as he thinks. Of course I know. I have been living in the same room with him for over twenty years. I have seen him growing up. For a close observant, it is hard not to notice. He is so careful to hide this from everyone, but I had known even before he consciously noticed himself.” She moved on to clear the table and set up the washing pot, all the while I was standing next to her pretty dumbstruck and didn’t know what to say or do. Finally, she waved her hand impatiently and beckoned me over to lend her a hand with the big and heavy pot. “Come on,” she demanded. “I would really appreciate some help here. We´ve got lots to do and I cannot do all of it alone so please, make yourself useful.”  
I quickly followed her instructions, too afraid what would happen if I didn’t. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? I could hardly ignore what she just told me, yet it felt like betraying Ra if I should talk as freely about this with her as I secretly wanted to. What should I do, when not even her own brother wanted to confide in her?  
“So,” I tested tentatively, after I couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Why did you tell me? Does it bother you? Am I here for you to get rid of me?”  
“What? No!” She shook her head decidedly. “You have no idea how long I have waited for this. I have wanted my brother to finally accept who he is, and find a partner whom he can love and who loves him back as fiercely as he deserves, for as long as I know him. You are the first man he ever cared about enough to bring home to meet us. I actually think you are the first one ever that he really loved. I´m not telling you to go. On the contrary,” she sighed, “I wanted to tell you how much Ralof means to me. And if he is only half as important to you as he is to me, I wanted to make sure he´s got what he deserves.”  
Both of us had stopped working by then and stood there together, once again staring deep into each other´s eyes. I believed her, believed every word she was saying and I saw in her eyes how truly overwhelmingly she loved her brother and that she would do absolutely anything to protect him. I felt my voice catch in my throat when I answered. “He is everything to me,” I whispered.  
She nodded. “Just… keep him safe. Make him happy. That´s all I ask of you.” She narrowed her eyes and squinted my willpower down. Damn that woman, I thought. She really managed what only very few people in this world ever could. I prided myself with hardly showing any emotions if I did not want to, if I did not want my opponent to see any of it. But Gerdur had cut through my defences immediately and as easily as a sharp blade cut through a stack of parchment. It was disconcerting how much she resembled her brother in this, how much siblings could be alike.  
I tried to lighten the seriousness with which she looked at me and tried to cloud my own vulnerability by seemingly shrugging worldly-wise. “I will. At least I´m trying. Your brother really is quite a special person.”  
“You are adults, grown men, both of you, so I will not interfere with your personal lives or the relationship or whatever it is that you guys have. But no matter what will happen, no matter where the two of you will end up, there is one thing I´ll be most adamant about,” Gerdur said, fixing me with these piercing blue eyes, just a shade lighter than her brother´s, but equally disconcerting.  
I couldn´t help but ask. “And what would that be?”  
“Whatever you boys do, whatever you will end up to be… Haithabu, please do not break my brother´s heart,” Gerdur voiced softly but also determined and deliberate enough for me to immediately fear the consequences if I should ever displease her. She was quite the powerful woman. I never wanted to cross her or have to be the one to face her wrath. Her protectiveness of her brother only made her climb higher in my esteem. She really cared for Ralof and in this world, there were not that many people this could be said of. As his partner and his sister, we should act in concert and together we could assure that Ra would never get hurt, never be unhappy.  
“I would never –,“ I began, before I felt my voice catch and Gerdur interrupted me so I never got to finish my sentence.  
“I love my brother. More than I love anyone else in this world. Except my Frodnar, of course. Ralof is the last living member of my family, each other is all the two of us have left and I would do everything to protect him. Anything.” When I just stood there, staring, unable to say anything at all, she continued. “And when I say anything, I mean anything. Ralof is the gentlest and loveliest person I know, the best brother I could hope for and the best uncle Frodnar could ask for, so he only deserves the best in turn. He apparently chose you, so I desperately implore you to make him happy and never, never ever to hurt him. I will kill you personally if you ever do. That, I swear solemnly…” I was so taken aback by this declaration of love between the two siblings that I did not know quite how to react. Also, I was not entirely sure if she was really joking or if she actually and literally meant what she was saying. I tried a wan smile and she fiercely swept aside any doubt I could have had of her intentions, making it completely clear that she meant business. Not, that I would ever consider hurting Ralof. I´d rather die myself than let any woe befall him. But I couldn’t say that. Not to her, not without Ralof there, out of fear to somehow reveal to much of what I felt for him, too much of how deep my love reached. Gerdur only continued to stare at me hard, I saw her eyebrows arch and I felt compelled to reassure her further – albeit considerably defensively.  
“I do not plan to hurt him. I love him, you know…” I trailed off, utterly unable to put this into words, afraid to trust anyone enough to voice my deepest emotions and longings to and place this weapon and the key to my vulnerable heart into anyone else´s hands other than Ralof himself.  
“Listen, Haithabu. I like you, I really do. And I am happy for Ralof that the two of you have found each other. But I know men, I know how guys like you act to amuse themselves. And I won’t let anything shameful happen to my brother, just for you to have your fun. Have I made myself clear?“  
“Abundantly,” I nodded.  
“Great,” she said and at long last there appeared a slow and wistful smile on her lips. And just as easily as that she changed the subject to where to arrange the benches on the lawn and where exactly I should place all the other things she made me carry for her. It was as if our previous conversation had never happened, during the entire day she didn’t mention any of it again, but she seemed to be more satisfied and pleased with me than before and often laughed at me or just smiled to herself when she thought I couldn’t see her. Together, we had the entire party set up and prepared the food and drinks and everything else and she even managed at long last, what I had been so convinced could never happen at all, as long as I was trapped in this seemingly harmonious village at the edge of the mountains: My mood lifted and I started to enjoy the day.  
After putting up two long trestle tables on the close-cropped grass of Hod and Gerdur´s front lawn, I gently encouraged Ra´s and my horse to stand behind the shed – they seemed not entirely pleased to be put away, but finally agreed to let me tether them securely to a pole and after I slipped them some more treats, they even seemed to be okay with it. Soon thereafter, the first guests began to arrive – all women and children as the men were still out hunting – and Gerdur managed everything with the same sure and steady naturalness she managed her family and the affairs of the entire village with, and soon had everyone seated. When the men came back with a few grouse and a medium-sized deer, they were flayed immediately and prepared to grill. The fire was already glowing by the time we put the game up and the meat was roasted in no time at all, leaving just enough time for the men to get started on the numerous casks and jugs of ale, wine and certain other, stronger things, until dinner was ready.  
Everyone taken together, there were not that many people there – about two dozen all in all – but it still was a merry occasion and with food and drinks in abundance it got merrier and more casual by the hour. Frodnar unwrapping his gifts and being as pleased as Punch about every single one of them was the highlight of the afternoon and a delight to just about everyone. As a distant friend and no relative of the actual family, I was seated far apart from Ralof, right on the end of the other table and thus I didn’t talk to him all day long. But I wasn’t bored or sullen or anything, as I sat in between two entertaining siblings, Camilla and Lucan Valerius, who apparently were the joint owners of the pawn shop in town and had a lot of stories to tell and a lot of jokes to relate. It was funny, the siblings getting more and more drunk and as the day and the celebration took its course, and they started to disagree over more and more things and soon the entire table was taking sides and amusedly sympathizing with the quarrelling parties. But it helped make me forget briefly the problems of my own life and the struggle on the Ralof-family-front. I even managed to laugh a little bit.  
Afterwards, when all the guests were gone and Frodnar sat on his rug in front of the fire and played with all the new things he´d gotten and I helped clean and tidy up everything, Gerdur happily declared the party a wholehearted success. I felt more at ease now than I had before in the company of Ra´s little family, even though after a long day I still longed for the both of us to be alone again, to lean in to him, to feel him close and to fall asleep with his strong and protective arms around me just as we had yesterday. But that was clearly wishful thinking and as Ra had only occasionally looked at me at all during the entire day – we had not only sat at different tables, but on top of that had not been in direct view of each other at all – I was nearly convinced that he had forgotten about the promise he had made last night, when he had talked about finally coming out. Seeing how Gerdur accepted him anyways and also about Hod easing up on both of us during the day, I came to feel maybe it was not necessary to explicitly tell them after all. Ralof didn’t know that his entire family knew about us anyways, but if he wanted it to stay that way, who was I to push him to do anything he didn’t really want to do? Who was I to make the decisions for him. If he did not want to come out, he did not have to. And that was the moment, when he surprised me again.  
∞∞∞  
After returning the house and its furniture to its original state, clearing away all the remains and doing the dishes – the sun had disappeared a few hours ago – we were finally finished and with Frodnar still not up for bed and cheerfully and very much wide awake, playing with his presents, Hod, Gerdur, Ra and I had retired in a wide and loose circle around the cosy fireplace and were sipping some sort of brandy Hod had proudly announced was a cherished inheritance from his late grandfather from over thirty years ago. I wasn’t usually a big drinker – and felt the alcohol level in my blood rise perilously even after only a few tiny sips, making myself want to lie down immediately, close my eyes and sleep forever – but Hod had been surprisingly adequate and almost nice to me in the last couple of hours, so I was careful not to put him off again and therefore I thanked him honestly as he passed me a glass filled with just a finger´s width of amber liquid in it, before preparing the same for himself and Gerdur and finally for Ralof. We sat around the fire and didn’t talk much. Hod and Gerdur sat in the loose and natural embrace of a couple that had been together for many years and seen many a thing but still one way or the other loved each other. Hod was proudly watching his son play with his latest conquests, while Gerdur wistfully grinned to no one in particular and tiredly sipped her drink contentedly. Ra was sitting next to me and stared into the flames solemnly without moving a muscle. I tried to finally and properly relax.  
“Hey guys,” Ra said suddenly, with a surprisingly even and controlled voice and clear and wide open eyes. “There is something important I was meaning to talk to you about.” Hod and Gerdur exchanged a curious glance and instinctively leaned in closer, even though all four of us already sat grouped together in a perfect half circle around the freshly built fire. Even Frodnar looked up from where he was polishing his brand-new bow due to the eager resonance and the decisiveness in his uncle´s words and tone of voice.  
“What is it?”, asked Gerdur, slightly worried. “Did anything happen?”  
“Yes,” said Ra, but when Gerdur´s aura flared worriedly he quickly added, “but it´s something good, don’t worry.” He bit his lower lip nervously, before his eyes flashed over briefly to meet mine. “I… I have met someone.” Gerdur sat up straighter and I noticed an eager glow in her eyes. Ra reached across to where my arm lay on the armrest of my chair and gently laid his hand over mine. Except Ra, everyone else in the room – myself included – gasped in surprise. “Haithabu and I,” he continued slowly and looking at him in this very moment I was so proud of him, so in love with him, that I couldn’t tear my eyes off. He laced his fingers through mine. “we are more than just friends.” He paused to draw a deep breath and the pressure of his fingers increased slightly. I held him tight. “We love each other. We´ve been seeing each other for almost two seasons now and I wanted you to know about it. I felt it was about time I told you. But it doesn’t change anything. I am still the same brother and the same brother-in-law that I was before. I don’t want anything between us to be different.” He was staring straight ahead, but I could feel every single finger of his hand press into the heel of my hand and knew how hard it was for him, what it must cost him to finally and truly do this. It was eerily quiet throughout the entire house, the only sound the blithely sputtering fire that was flickering animatedly in the fireplace and the deep and now becoming slightly worried breathing of Ra by my side. He looked at the cherished members of his family in close succession slowly, desperately willing them to respond. His shining eyes clouded over eventually, as none made a move to actually start an answer and I felt the need to say something, do something, lest Ralof lose all that hard-earned confidence and attractive resolution this statement had made him show.  
“Now, this is starting to get a bit awkward,” I said as lightly as I could, trying to lift the mood. “Isn´t anyone going to say anything?”  
Hod started from his chair abruptly and wheeled on Ra and me, face all of a sudden contorted into an abominable snarl. The ease and friendly distance we had accomplished during the day vanished in a single intake of breath and his rage flew at us like a whirlwind of sharp daggers, metaphorically boring into our sides. “I knew it,” he cried. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it all along! The way you two kept leering at each other… It´s disgusting! I want nothing to do with you any more. You get yourselves out of my house and off my premises right now and stop corrupting my innocent family with your unnatural influence. From this day on, you will be dead to me. I never want to see your faces ever again,” he spat. Gerdur braced herself to come to her brother´s rescue, tried to speak up and measure her husband but he silenced her with a curt gesture. “Silence, wife!” Not wanting Frodnar to see his parents fight, Gerdur succumbed, but her anger and displeasure was written across her entire face visibly and I knew this discussion was not over yet and Gerdur would fight for her brother as he couldn’t fight for himself. Hod turned to his brother-in-law again. “You are an abomination. If you are not gone for good by the time I return I will personally KILL YOU!” With that Hod left the house before either Gerdur or I could say anything else, banging the heavy wooden door shut behind him, dragging a meekly protesting Frodnar with him, out into the black of night. For a long time, it was uneasily quiet, none of us dared move, none of us dared say a word. I finally turned to Ra and was taken aback by the white mask of sadness and grief that stared back at me, turning his beautiful face into an abstraction of itself.  
“Ra,” I breathed softly and quickly moved to reach for his other hand, to take both of his in mine. He clutched at them tightly but other than that still didn’t move.  
“I dreaded this,” he said unusually soundless and flat. “I am sorry, Gerdur. I… I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I thought maybe you were ready. I was hoping you´d understand… I – It´s okay if you should hate me now. “  
“Obviously I don’t hate you!” Gerdur cut him off quickly and before anyone could say anything else she was up and crossed the distance to Ra´s chair and, crouching before him, hugged her little brother tight. He was evidently quite astonished and surprised about this sudden move that he didn’t know what else to say. He had clearly not expected this. Yet, he reciprocated the embrace and rested his head on Gerdur’s shoulders, eyes closed. “It´s not your fault,” she said and gently padded his back as his shoulders started to tremble slightly. “Hod can be an ass sometimes. We both know that. It´s not your fault that he is as simple-minded and intolerant as most of them are these days. It doesn’t mean, though, that his behaviour is appropriate in any way. Just… don’t listen to him, little brother, no matter what my husband may say.”  
It was a while until Ralof spoke again and I could feel that his entire wellbeing and peace of mind depended on Gerdur’s next answer. “And what do you say?”  
“Are you kidding?”, said Gerdur. “I am totally with you. I only want what´s best for you and am so glad you finally told us. I know it couldn’t have been easy. But you got to be who you truly are and pay no attention to Hod and the likes of him. He doesn’t know what he´s talking about.”  
“But you really are okay with it?”, asked Ra, unsure even now as to his sisters true feelings and not yet entirely able to believe that he was not in fact the abomination Hod wanted to make of him.  
Gerdur still held on to him tight and smiled softly at me as she caught me looking. “Of course, I am okay with it. Why wouldn’t I be? You are my baby brother, Ralof. I love you, no matter whom you choose to love.”  
“I know… I just thought… seeing how Hod reacted. Seeing how most other people react; I didn’t dare hope you´d accept me like this.”  
“It is not my place to question any decisions you make about your life. Much less about your love life. If I am completely honest, I don’t really understand why one would want to choose what you chose. But seeing that you are happy with it, happy with him, I am happy with you. No matter whom you spend your life with. Do you believe me?”  
“I do,” said Ra. “Thank you.” And after a last tight squeeze they let go of each other and both turned to look to me immediately.  
“Besides, I have to admit, I quite like whom you have found,” continued Gerdur and regarded me good-naturedly. Never before like in this moment had I noticed their similarity more, never had it been more apparent that they were siblings. Their faces wore identical expressions of relief and hope and even their bright eyes shone in the same, almost divine light. Ra reached out and we linked fingers again.  
“So, what now?”, I asked at long last, when I felt I couldn’t bear this comprehensive amount of staring in silence any more. “Do we stay? Or do we go, like Hod wanted us to?” Ra and Gerdur exchanged a quick glance and I felt something passing between them, like a wordless understanding or kind of a silent conversation, though it was not immediately palpable for me what exactly it had been.  
“Well, I think it would be best to give Hod some time to cool down. He´ll come around eventually, he almost always does. But right now, I don’t think it wise if he has to see more of you than absolutely necessary,” said Gerdur. Ra cast his scintillating eyes down and was studying the floorboards between his comfy boots while Gerdur continued. “It´s probably best if you retired for the night.” Both of us got up immediately and nodded almost in perfect synch. No matter how understanding and encouraging his sister may be, I desperately longed to finally be alone with Ra again and had secretly been waiting for an opportunity to retreat.  
“But you´ll still come to say goodbye before you leave tomorrow, will you?” Gerdur looked at her brother with pleading eyes, before he could slip out her door. “I don’t want to let you go like that, okay? We´re still family and, like you said, this doesn’t change anything. Promise me, you´ll not just vanish. That would break my heart.”  
Ralof still didn’t respond, so at long last I decided to speak. “Of course we will stop by. Promised.” I reached for Ra´s arm and he let me lead him to the door. “Come now, let´s go. You can stay with me at the inn tonight.”  
He only shrugged his shoulders and kissed his sister good night quickly, then he vanished into the black of night beyond the oaken door. Just as I wanted to follow him, I felt a restraining hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Gerdur staring at me with these very same eyes that made me love her brother so much. She just regarded me for a long time and I couldn’t tear my eyes off hers any more than I could tear my eyes off Ra´s. “Thank you,” she whispered just before she finally hugged me goodbye and then let go.  
“What for?”, I asked, but she was already retreating and closing the door.  
“For everything,” was the last I heard, before the door shut into my face and I had to hurry along to catch up with Ralof in the surrounding blackness of night.  
∞∞∞  
I caught up with Ra a few yards from the porch of his family´s house, though I needn’t have hurried. He was waiting for me, leaning against the water trough for Hod and Gerdur´s livestock and poked at a mound of dirt beneath his feet with the tip of one of his boots. He sported a truly curious expression, odd and strangely off-key, one I had never seen him wear before.  
“You okay?”, I asked when he lifted his eyes. He nodded, gently slipping his hand into mine as we started to walk down the narrow and completely dark path of hard-packed dirt towards the centre of this small settlement and the only brightly lit structure in the night where right now most of the village´s inhabitants were honouring the end of the day by relishing yet another evening to get drunk and debauch with tankards of ale and all kinds of other stuff. The night was crisp but not yet cold and the sky was cloudless and clear, the moons and stars shining bright. We slowly ambled down the narrow path, not hurrying but also not trundling and I for my part was glad that we were alone again, away from the prying and condemning stares of Ra´s brother-in-law or the curious and vigilant eyes of Gerdur and her disconcertingly knowing smile. Apparently, this was a feeling Ralof shared, for he soon let out a deep and prolonged breath. “I just had to get out of there. It was all too much… so emotional, so… intense,” he said at long last.  
“I know,” I agreed, nodding sympathetically. “So, how does it feel? You´re not having any regrets, do you?”  
He shook his head again so that a few loose strands of his hair fell into his eyes. I longed to reach out and brush them back, but he was faster. “No,” he said. “I am not overly happy about the way Hod reacted. Though frankly, I don’t even know why that still surprises me as much as it does. It was nothing I shouldn’t have expected. He just didn’t like me before, now he truly hates me. Where he is concerned, there is not much difference between those two anyways. Deep down I knew that he neither could nor ever would accept us.”  
“He´ll come around,” I said, not actually all that convinced of this, but if it made Ra feel better, I´d make myself believe, if I absolutely had to. Ra shrugged non-committal but didn’t disagree.  
“But apart from that you were right. It does feel like a great weight has been lifted from my conscience. Like it´s the first time I can actually breathe completely at ease. I do feel great. Like for the first time ever I am free and can be as true to myself as I haven’t been in a very long time. And I can finally stop all the pretence and for Talos´ sake, I will finally be able to stop inventing these stupid stories for Gerdur whenever she asked me about…well, you know.”  
I wanted to tell him that Gerdur had known all along, that she had wanted him to be true to himself and come out for years, that she loved him so much and would do anything to protect him, but I didn’t. Instead, I snickered. “You did? What kind of stories?”  
He quickly averted his eyes as if embarrassed. “Well, it´s not that interesting, it´s… stupid stuff, mostly.”  
“Now you´ve made me curious,” I said. He smiled at me with tender longing in his eyes, but didn’t answer. “Tell me whenever you´re ready.”  
“Maybe, one day.”  
“Maybe,” I said.  
Neither spoke for a while and we had almost reached the shadow of the crowded inn out of which drove the happy sounds of laughter and revel, when Ra stopped just outside the lantern-lit perimeter of the inn´s porch. He squeezed my fingers. “Thank you,” he said, suddenly utterly serious and serene again. “Thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for believing in me.”  
“Always,” I said and squeezed back. I pulled free and took a step back, just about to turn and disappear into the tavern. “I´ll organize a few drinks and something to eat for us. As soon as I´m back in my room I´ll open the window. You can climb in unseen, so you won´t have to use up any more of the precious potions and I won´t have to break your nose yet again. See you in five?”  
“No,” he said and quickly took a step towards me, standing very close to me but not yet touching. He extended his hand. “No more hiding. No more shams,” he declared. “No more sneaking around behind people´s backs. I am so sick of all the hiding and the lies and hostilities and all that stuff. If we want to make a difference, now´s our chance. Are you ready for a change?”  
I turned, too taken aback to hide my utter surprise in time. He looked at me uninhibitedly, expectantly. “Are you serious? Do you really wanna do this? Because if we do, it will not always be easy. Most people won´t accept us and even those who seem to won´t all be our friends. If we are not careful, this may haunt us till the end of the world.”  
“This world may not be ready for us yet, but I sure as Oblivion am. As long as I am with you, no struggle can be too hard to endure, and no obstacle too high to overcome. If we are gonna do this, the time is now. So, what do you say?”  
I looked up at him and let him take my hand. “I´m ready when you are,” I said and let him lead me out into the rest of the world, out into the light.


End file.
